Provide information regarding microbial size, shape, motility, and differentiation of the following preparations: spore stain, negative stain, simple stain, hanging drop slide, and gram stain. could the gram stain be used to diagnose the flu? why or why not?

No gram stain cannot be used because influenza virus causes flu and virus has no cell wall which we could stain.

Further explanation

Microbial size

A reasonable standard for estimating organisms is the micrometer which is multiple times littler than a meter (one-millionth of a meter). There are 106 µmeters in one meter, and it is these units that are utilized to quantify the size of microscopic organisms. Normally, microscopic organisms extend from around 1 µm to around 5 µm.

Microbial shape

There are a huge number of microbes, yet every one of them are essentially of three unique shapes. Some are rod like and called bacilli and E. coli is rod shaped. While some are round in shape like cocci e.g Staphylococcus. Third type is spiral like and is called spirilla.

Motility of microbes  

The have the ability to swim or crawl frequently and interact with their physical and chemical environments.

Spore staining

It is a technique which is used for differentiation and we dye the cell wall and spores of bacteria.

Simple stain

It is one of very simple methods which involves only a single solution for staining.

Hanging drop slide

It is a technique which used wet mount and organism is dipped in it and then that organism is placed on a slide under microscope for analysis.

Gram stain

In this technique in which an organism is stained. It may be gram positive or gram negative.

Answer details

Subject: Biology

Level: college

Key words

Learn more to evaluate

Gram stain cannot be used to diagnose the flu.

Further Explanation:

Microbes are very small in size around 1µm-10µm. They are not easily visible by naked eyes. We can visualize microbes through the microscope.

Microbes divide majorly into categories:

     •     Bacteria

     •     Fungi  

     •     Virus

     •     Protozoa

     •     Algae

Microbes are unicellular and some are acellular. Microbes synthesize their food through photosynthesis and some depend on the host cell.

Microbes have a different type of shapes:

     •    Spherical (cocci)

     •    Rod (bacilli)

     •    Spiral (spirilla)

     •    Comma (vibrios)

Motility is the capability of an organism to move. Flagella is present in mostly bacilli bacteria which help in the movement of bacteria.

Spore stain-

It is a differentiation technique in which we distinguish cell and spores. Malachite green dye is used which binds to walls of spores and cell. After washing, the comes out from the cell wall and pores remain green.

Negative stain-

In this technique background is stained and the specimen is unstained. This technique is used for determining cell size and arrangement of cells. Nigrosin dye is used in negative staining.

Simple stain-

In this technique, we use only one stain for bacterial staining, for example, methylene blue and safranin.

Hanging drop slide-

In this technique, slide has a concavity which contains an organism dipped into the fluid. This technique used to analyze the motility of an organism.

Gram stain-

In this technique, we differentiate two kinds of bacteria gram-positive and gram-negative on the basis of thickening of the cell wall.

Gram-positive bacteria contain thick peptidoglycan in their cell walls, due to which cells stained violet. Gram-negative bacteria are not capable to retain this solution due to thin cell walls that lack peptidoglycan layer.

Thus, the flu occurs due to the influenza virus. Viruses are enclosed by a protein coat they do not contain any cell wall because of this they cannot be tested using gram staining.

Learn more:

     •    Learn more about virus

     •    Learn more food poisining

     •    Learn more life style disease

Answer Details:

Grade: High School

Subject: Biology

Chapter: Microbiology

Keywords:

Microbial size, microbial shape, motility of microbes, spore staining, simple stain, hanging drop slide, gram stain, gram-negative bacteria, gram-positive bacteria, influenza virus, bacteria, protozoa, algae.