Hans christian gram microbiology for dummies
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Gram stain
Investigative procedure in microbiology
Gram stain (Gram staining or Gram's method), is a method of staining used to classify bacterial species into two large groups: gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria. It may also be used to diagnose a fungal infection.[1] The name comes from the Danish bacteriologistHans Christian Gram, who developed the technique in 1884.[2]
Gram staining differentiates bacteria by the chemical and physical properties of their cell walls. Gram-positive cells have a thick layer of peptidoglycan in the cell wall that retains the primary stain, crystal violet. Gram-negative cells have a thinner peptidoglycan layer that allows the crystal violet to wash out on addition of ethanol. They are stained pink or red by the counterstain,[3] commonly safranin or fuchsine. Lugol's iodine solution is always added after addition of crystal violet to form a stable complex with crystal violet that strengthen the bonds of the stain with the cell wall.[4]
Gram staining is almost always the first step in the identification of a bacterial group. While Gram staining is a valuable diagnostic tool in both clinical and research settings, not all bacteria can be definitively classified by this technique
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Gram’s Staining be intended for medical students.pptx
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EDITORIAL
The Danish microbiologist Hans Christian Gram developed a staining technique (1884) that classifies most bacteria into two large groups that are referred to eponymously, as Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria (1). His stain is still used in medical microbiology labs today, and because of its explanatory power, this classification is the most commonly used descriptor of a particular bacterium in scientific reports. It has been clear since the beginning that the Gram stain must detect some fundamental difference in the cell envelopes of these two types of bacteria, but elucidating cell envelope structure, particularly in the case of Gram-negative bacteria, required 80 years and the development of thin-section electron microscopy.
In a classic Journal of Bacteriology paper, Bladen and Mergenhagen (2) showed clearly for the first time that unlike the cell envelopes of Gram-positive bacteria, which contain a thick peptidoglycan cell wall that surrounds a single membrane, the cell envelopes of Gram-negative bacteria are composed of three structural entities: an inner or cytoplasmic membrane, a thin, rigid cell wall, and an outer membrane. They demonstrated by using lysozyme that the structure between the two membranes is the peptidoglycan and by using selective ex