Suppose you are viewing a Gram stained field of red rods and purple cocci through a microscope. Conclusion?

Answer 1

You have a mixed culture of unkown rods and cocci. Point of note: you can probably rule out Mycobacteria and Streptococcus. Mycobacteria don't gram stain unless you pre-treat it, and strep is normally a diplococcus

EDIT: guy below seems to be suggesting the E.coli are cocci. Beleive me, they are the definitive rods. There is no-way he could say the rods are mycobaceria - he needs to read some books. If nothing else (and i hate myself for saying this) check out wikipedia. Or this site: http://www-micro.msb.le.ac.uk/

Answer 2

Sounds like a mixed bag there. I agree with our microbiologist, mycobacteria can be ruled out. Been my experience... the boxy looking gram negatives tend to look like E. coli. Slender, delicate looking gram negative rods tend to come out as Klebsiella. If you are not careful gram staining, Klebsiella tends to wash off.

If you see twisted looking strings of gram positive cocci, that is a good likelihood of it being Strep, as opposed to clusters of gram positives that look like grapes, pointing towards Staphlyococcus.

No budding structures or hyphal elements? You can cross out Candida species. That will pick up the Crystal Violet if it was in there.

Answer 3

This would resemble mycobacterium phlei as the gram negative rods, and likely Escherichia coli – E-coli – (streptococci and enterococci - collectively referred to as the EEC group) as the gram positive cocci. This result would probably indicate the presence of gastroenteritis . Further tests would need to be carried out using McConkey’s medium in negative and positive lactose fermentation to isolate the type as either Escherichia coli or Enterobacter aerogenes, from the positive, and pseudomonas aeruginosa or Proteus vulgaris from the negative. There is also a possibility that Klebsiella pneumonia might be present in the positive fermentation.
Matador 89

Answer 4

Gram adverse is often pink/pink so i might end they are gram constructive and your inocculating loop wasnt suitable sterilized! yet I even have examine that streptococci could be the two gram + and gram -. desire this helps!

Answer 5

what the he!! are you talking about??