9/14 and 9/15 labs

On 9/14 we did a gram stain on D. Rad. Unfortunately there were not enough cells and we did not heat fix long enough to see any result under the microscope. The cells began to wash away during the process.
On 9/15 we decided to reattempt gram staining on P. fluorescens. This time we heat fixed even more so the cells did not wash away. The sample was a bit older coming from August, therefore the cells appeared as debris rather than clumps of cells.

Comments

  1. beccaonlineSeptember 15, 2018 at 10:29 AM

    It really was a tragedy, all of our cells washing away. This time we know how to properly heat fix ourselves, so we can continue having successful stains. Good work today!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ricardo M.September 20, 2018 at 9:50 PM

    By any chance are gram stains affected by time? I wonder if the freshness of the samples affects the stains since it's mentioned that the colonies look like debris under the microscope.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Claudia MillanesSeptember 22, 2018 at 11:14 AM

    In my opinion, that's the sucky part of gram staining. If you don't heat it enough, then the bacteria starts to wash away, but if you over heat it, then you start to burn the cells. However, with more practice you'll be able an expert when it comes to gram staining.

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