ISY91015 Information Systems Analysis And Design

1: Provide information regarding microbial size, shape, motility, and differentiation of the following preparations: spore stain, negative stain, simple stain, hanging drop slide, and Gram stain. Could the Gram stain be used to diagnose the flu? Why or why not?

2: Contrast two different methods of detecting and counting microbial populations. What are their advantages and disadvantages?

1:

Staining can be considered as an auxiliary technique that is abundantly used in the microbiological studying that helps in identification of different microbial strains. There are different kinds of microbial straining procedures, such as spore staining, simple staining, negative staining, hanging drop slide, and gram staining. In order to understand the difference between the above mentioned types of staining, it can be mentioned that spore staining or endospore staining is the type of staining that helps in the differentiating different bacterial strains on the basis of size and shape to some extent, although this particular staining procedure helps in differentiating between the spore bearing state and the vegetative state of the bacteria. On the other hand, the negative staining method is a very mild yet abundantly used technique used in the identification of the microbiological stains (Budin et al., 2012). The negative staining procedure also shows the size and shape of the bacteria and it is effective in differentiating between capsulated and non-capsulated bacteria. The simple staining is the mildest form of staining which is mainly utilized for the academic purposes. And this particular staining procedure helps in determining cell shape, size and arrangement of bacteria. The fourth staining technique that needs to be discussed is the hanging drop slide staining technique which is a specialized type of wet mounting, which is one of the staining techniques that helps in the observation of the motility of the bacteria. The last technique is gram staining which is also one of the greatest techniques that helps in classifying the bacteria broadly. And it classified the bacteria into two broad groups, gram positive and gram negative, on the basis of the composition of the cell wall (Harada et al., 2013).  

No gram staining cannot be utilized to diagnose the flu successfully because gram staining is a specific test that is used to classify bacteria, whereas, influenza or flu is caused by influenza virus.

2:

Detection and enumeration of the microbial mass is one of the most abundantly utilized techniques in the field of microbiological research. One of most abundantly used techniques for detection and enumeration of the microbial mass is the direct count method via a counting chamber. In this technique the direct microscopic counts are enumerated with the helping of spreading a certain volume over a slide within a set area and enumerating the representative microscopic fields. After the enumeration of the microscopic fields, the averages are related back to the appropriate volume area factors (Davis, 2014).

The other bacterial enumeration and detection technique that is used abundantly in the microbiology research is the direct count using the fluorescent dyes. It has to be mentioned that these dyes can be used to not just stain all species for enumeration purposes; but it is also used to very easy detection of the bacterial species by staining only a particular species or even specific component of cells. This particular staining technique is a much more advanced staining technique which has gained popularity for the precision and ease of both enumeration and detection provided by this technique which cannot be achieved with the use of counting chambers (Garcia et al., 2013).

References:

Budin, G., Chung, H. J., Lee, H., & Weissleder, R. (2012). A magnetic Gram stain for bacterial detection. Angewandte Chemie, 124(31), 7872-7875.

Davis, C. (2014). Enumeration of probiotic strains: review of culture-dependent and alternative techniques to quantify viable bacteria. Journal of Microbiological Methods, 103, 9-17.

Garcia, A., Gon?i, P., Cieloszyk, J., Fernandez, M. T., Calvo-Beguería, L., Rubio, E., ... & Clavel, A. (2013). Identification of free-living amoebae and amoeba-associated bacteria from reservoirs and water treatment plants by molecular techniques. Environmental science & technology, 47(7), 3132-3140.

Harada, A., Matsuzaki, K., Takeiri, A., Tanaka, K., & Mishima, M. (2013). Fluorescent dye-based simple staining for in vivo micronucleus test with flow cytometer. Mutation Research/Genetic Toxicology and Environmental Mutagenesis, 751(2), 85-90.