Identifying  your unknown organism

You will perform these tests in addition to the standard tests written in the lab protocol.

Your instructor will assign each group of students an unknown organism

Lab 1:

Take one tube of your unknown organism and 1 broth, 1 deep and 1 slant

Inoculate your unknown organism into each of these media.

Lab 3:

By now, you should be comfortable, streaking organisms on a plate.

Take one tube of your unknown organism and 1 NA plate and 1 MacConkey agar plate.

Streak your unknown organism onto a NA plate and a MacConkey agar plate.

Lab 4 and lab 5:

Make a smear of your unknown organism and gram stain it.

Lab 7:

Temperature lab: Take 5 additional broths and inoculate each one with your unknown organism.  Place one broth at each of the following temperatures – 4, 25, 37, 42 and 55 degrees C.  In the following class period, record where your organism grows best. 

Growth lab (salt lab):  Take a 1%, 5 %, 10% and 15% salt plate.  Streak your organism on the plate (you can share your plate with another group if you like) and record its growth in the next lab period.

You will not be determining the thermal death time for your unknown

Oxygen lab:  Inoculate 1 Thioglycollate broth with your unknown organism.  Identify the growth pattern in the following laboratory.

Lab  8

 Swab your unknown organism on a MH plate, dispense antibiotics onto the plate and determine its antibiotic sensitivity.

Lab 9

Look under the document called biochemical tests protocol to find out what media to inoculate your unknown into.   You will perform a variety of biochemical tests on your unknown organism.