Question

A student creates a Gram stain on a bacterial sample that has a mix of gram-negative and gram-positive organisms. The student accidentally forgets the decolorizer step. What would the outcome of the Gram stain be?

Answer 1

Answer:

All bacteria should appear blue or purple color (gram-positive).

Explanation:

Gram staining is known as a technique of separation of the bacteria based on their peptidoglycan composition of the cell wall. Decolorization is a step which involved in gram staining with the help of this step we can differentiate gram-positive, and gram-negative bacteria.

Decoloration step: In this step, decolorizing agent ethanol extracts blue color from gram-negative bacteria which contains thin-walled peptidoglycan layer, and gram-positive bacteria contains a thick-walled peptidoglycan layer so it remains the purple or blue color.

So, if a student is performing a Gram stain of both the bacteria and he accidentally forgets the decolorizer step than both the bacteria gram-positive and gram-negative should appear blue or purple color.