Unknown Number 16 Essay

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Unknown Number 16 – Salmonella typhimurium Cindy Chai Rutgers University Microbiology for the Health Sciences Abstract This lab report was performed to identify the unknown organism, number 16, through various laboratory tests and techniques. The laboratory tests generated some critical results that suggested the unknown culture was Salmonella typhimurium. Some of the tests that led to the identification of the unknown organism included: the EMB agar plate that resulted as negative for lactose fermentation, the phenol red pH indicator was negative for sucrose fermentation, and the glucose gas production test resulted as positive. These were a few of the test results, out of many others that led to characterize this unknown organism as Salmonella typhimurium. Introduction The bacterium, Salmonella, consists of many different serotypes (also called serovars), or strains, which are a group of closely related microorganisms distinguished by a characteristic set of antigens. In other words, the Salmonella genus has been determined to have over 2600 different serotypes, each different strain are serovars of Salmonella enterica. One of the main serovars of Salmonella enterica is typhimurium (1). Salmonella has…show more content…
Out of the five antibiotic disks used on the Mueller Hinton plate to inhibit the growth of the unknown organism, Nalidixic Acid had the greatest zone of inhibition at approximately 20 millimeters. Therefore, it would be ideal to use that antibiotic, as it would be the most effective chemotherapeutic agent since the organism is most sensitive to it. The antibiotic that Salmonella typhimurium would have the most resistance to is Penicillin, since it had the smallest zone of inhibition of 9 millimeters. There were no resisting colonies found, so the unknown organism, Salmonella typhimurium, does not seem to be becoming resistant to

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