Help identifying an unknown culture without sequence (student) - (Nov/25/2013 )
Hello,
I am hoping some people with more experience than me can point me in the right direction for identifying an isolate. I am a student performing research and have been collecting data on an isolate throughout the quarter, however sequencing was unfortunatly unsuccessful and I do not have time to redo it before the end of the quarter. So, I am hoping that someone can suggest a broad category my isolate may fit into based on the information I have, or perhaps point me to a resource.
Here is the information that I have
Origin: Soil at the edge of a duck pond, located on a horse farm in western Washington state
Colonies: Colonies are bright, highlighter pink. Circular with entire margins. Somewhat shiny and slightly translucent. Fairly flat. Fairly consistent size, ~1mm diameter. No distinct scent that I could detect.
Cellular morphology: Gram positive cocci. Seem to appear in clumps. There is an interesting "pea pod" structure around some of them where there is a gram-negative staining envelope structure containing 4-6 cells.
Aerobic, non-motile. Uses respiration to metabolize sugars. The cells did not grow very well in my metabolism assay, but it appears to be able to metabolize starch, glucose, maltose, sucrose and fructose. And not citrate, lactose, sodium pyruvate or amino acids. It did not show any signs of fermentation of CO2 production.
Thank you very much, any suggestions are welcome.
Capsule stain?
If it is highlighter pink - there could be some interesting fluorescent genes in there - potential commercial opportunity.
Have you performed the classical biochemical tests?
If you use the API Biomerieux strips guides you may get a potential ID based on that, though I don't know if you can get them without purchasing the strips.
By the way, whenever you describe colonies specify culture conditions and medium. Most bugs change the colony morphology under different conditions, especially in different media
Rather than shooting in the dark (esp. with API) - suggest you get Bergey's Determinative Manual. Be a microbiologist.
Check the attachement.
I am pretty sure I already posted this here somewhere.
Thanks Pito - could you post all the groups (esp. > 21)? As described this isolate may not fall into any of those in the attachment..
Phil Geis on Tue Nov 26 16:35:41 2013 said:
Thanks Pito - could you post all the groups (esp. > 21)? As described this isolate may not fall into any of those in the attachment..
I dont have flow charts for all the groups, just these ones.
Perhaps somewhere, stucked away I have some of the others, but not sure.
This is also a very usefull book:
Aerobic Bacteriology, and check chapter 3.18
and: http://www.nebraskamed.com/App_Files/pdf/careers/education-programs/asp/GuideBook.pdf
for some general flowcharts.
Of course, not complete etc but it should do the trick for most students identification problems
Pito - these are probably not useful. This is not a clinical isolate and by source and morphology is very unlikely to be identified as one.
mrodom - suggest you look at the full manual identified by Pito - esp. Groups 21-35.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bergeys-manual-of-determinative-bacteriology-john-g-holt/1100538624
Phil Geis on Tue Nov 26 19:46:36 2013 said:
Pito - these are probably not useful. This is not a clinical isolate and by source and morphology is very unlikely to be identified as one.
mrodom - suggest you look at the full manual identified by Pito - esp. Groups 21-35.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bergeys-manual-of-determinative-bacteriology-john-g-holt/1100538624
I know, but I doubt he has access to the full book.
And since he is a student, I would find it weird that its not a standard one....
But I have not checked his post in detail anyway so my posts might indeed not be very helpfull, but you never know.