Bacteria Identification

Bacteria Identification is a special technique that is used by biologist and many other scientist, because many of bacteria is useful for human, beside the others can disadvantage for human. Beside can cause diseases, many bacteria type is need by human for food process or industrial uses. To make sure that the bacteria can useful for certain application, people must identify the bacteria that want to use.

An important, widely used technique for identifying bacteria is gram staining, perfected by the Danish bacteriologist Hans Christian Gram in 1884. In this process the bacteria are treated with a special dye, or stain, and other chemicals. The treated this microbe, bacteria fall into two groups, gram-positive bacteria, which appear deep violet in color. and gram-negative bacteria, which appear red in color. Physicians often use gram staining in choosing the proper Antibiotics for treating a bacterial infection. Gram-positive bacteria are more susceptible to penicilin, whereas gram-negative bacteria are usually more susceptible to other antibiotics such as streptomycin. The basis of this difference in staining properties is still a mystery, but evidence indicates that the difference lies in the composition of the bacterial cell wall.

Although bacterial and plant cells are enclosed by rigid walls, the walls differ in composition. Plant cell walls derive their strength largely from cellulose, whereas bacterial cell walls are stiffened primarily by murein (a compound made of amino acids and sugar). This is the basis for the selective activity of certain drugs such as penicilin. Nontoxic to plants and animals, penicilin is toxic to habitat growing of bacteria because it inhibits formation of murein and thus interferes with reproduction.