Tuesday, January 3, 2012

What is a gram negative glucose fermenting rod that can be found in the lungs or resp. tract?

I have to determine what species of unknown bacteria I have for my micro cl. I can't seem to find anything that fits. Here's what I have so far: It is catalase (+), oxidase (-), methyl red (+), ferments lactose, maltose, glucose, sucrose, and mannitol (it was acidic and produced gas), did not digest gelatin. bile esculin turned black, citrate (+), SIM all negative, urease (-), and appears to be a facultative anaerobe. On a plate, the colonies grow quickly and look slimy (but I haven't successfully done a capsule stain yet). Colonies are a creamy white color. On starch, there is a "halo" effect when iodine is added. Hemolysis of blood agar looks like gamma or alpha, hard to tell. Anyway, according to my book, it looks like a Shigella or Klebsiella species, but my instructor posted a sheet telling where to find these bacteria and this doesn't seem to fit the lung/resp. tract thing. I know Klebsiella CAN cause pneumonia, but the lungs and resp. tract are not a normal place it would be found, right? If anyone can offer me some advice about additional testing or what kind of bacteria this might be, I'd appreciate it!

No comments:

Post a Comment