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Unknown Bacteria Report

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Unknown Bacteria Report
Determining the Unknown Microorganism from a Mixed Culture
Mylah Ferland, Rivier University MICRO 206, March 16th, 2016

Introduction:
An unknown bacterium experiment, this experiment was done to discover what bacterium was in a mixed culture sample. This experiment worked with enteric bacteria which are members of the Enterobacteriaceae and live in the intestinal tract (Willey et al., 2014). Also found in Willey et al (2014) is some characteristics of enterics such as they all degrade sugars by means of the Embden-Meyerhof pathway, they produce plasmid-encoded proteins and that some of them perform mixed acid fermentation, some use enzyme systems like formate dehydrogenase and pyruvate formate-lyase (PFL) The first thing that had to be done was the streak plating to isolate the bacterium, then the next lab multiple tests were ran to help identify which bacterium was in the sample. One of the most important tests done was gram staining because it helped to limit the possible bacterium that it could have been. To be sure which bacterium was worked with we referred to the Bergey’s manual and compared the results to the possible bacterium.
Results:
…show more content…
All the test done were based on results that we would be able to find in the Bergey’s manual. Table one shows the results of my unknown and Salmonella typhimurium found in the Bergey’s manual.
Gram staining showed gram negative rods, a motility test was also conducted to see if the bacterium moved or not, it was found to be none motile. Three different types of agar plates were used, they had two known bacterium put on along with the unknown to be able to compare negative and positive results if the known with the results of the unknown, refer to Barbaro (2016) for how the test were done.

Table 1: Results of unknown from testing done according to our lab

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