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DISCUSSION

The exercise made us collect samples from throat swabs and inoculated them on Blood

agar plates. Blood agar plates have 5% sheep’s blood, peptic soybean meal, sodium chloride, agar,

and casein. (Hardy Diagnostics, N.D.) Blood Agar Test help in growing organisms that are

fastidious and checking if the organisms have hemolytic capabilities. (Microbugz, N.D.a)

Hemolytic properties can be categorized into alpha hemolytic, beta hemolytic, and gamma

hemolytic in which alpha hemolytic bacteria exhibit darkening in the medium, beta hemolytic

bacteria exhibit clearing and gamma hemolytic has no visible change. (Microbugz, N.D.a)

We also collected samples from different surfaces of our body such as nose, elbow, scalp

and toes. We inoculated them on MSA medium which is a differential and selective medium which

selects those of the Staphylococcus genus which are halotolerant in the 7.5% salt of the medium

and can distinguish the specific species Staphylococcus aureus due to its ability to ferment

mannitol, a components in the MSA medium. (Microbugz, N.D.b)

We also performed catalase test on all the inoculated samples. This test determines the

presence of the enzyme catalase, a neutralizer for toxic oxygen metabolites, in the bacteria by the

addition of hydrogen peroxide on to a swab of bacteria. Streptococci is negative for this test and

S. aureus is positive. (Acharya, 2013)

The possible identities of our isolated bacteria in the MSA mediums are Staphylococcus

species but not S. aureus since non of the plates showed positive for mannitol fermentation. Gram

staining also showed the characteristics of Staphylococci since they are gram positive cocci in

clusters. The identity of the toe isolate is yeast due to its irregular gram staining appearance or still

S. aureus.
Microbugz. N.D.a. Blood Agar Test Retrieved at:

http://www.austincc.edu/microbugz/blood_agar_test.php

Hardy Diagnostics. N.D. Blood Agar Retrieved at:

https://catalog.hardydiagnostics.com/cp_prod/Content/hugo/BloodAgar.htm

Microbugz. N.D.b. Mannitol Salt Agar Test Retrieved at:

http://www.austincc.edu/microbugz/mannitol_salt_agar.php

Acharya, T. 2013. Catalase Test: principle, uses, procedure and results Retrieved at:

https://microbeonline.com/catalase-test-principle-uses-procedure-results/

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