November 22nd, 2011
Today the class tested the purity of bovine extract and albumin. We had to make wells as instructed by the worksheet given to us, fill it with the substance indicated and wait for the results in a day or two. Of the two groups, only one group has all three sections done correctly so my group probably has to go by their results. We also did an ELISA to determine if Patient 3 and/or 7 have HIV. We used the “+” wells to make a positive control sample, “-“ wells for negative control samples, “3” wells for Patient 3’s results, and “7” wells for Patient 7’s results. After following the directions provided by the worksheet, we found that while Patient 3 does not have an HIV infection, Patient 7 does.
November 29th, 2011
The class checked the plate with the three templates to see what happened in each of the experiments. The first part had green and red dye in two separate wells at the top while Barium Chloride was at the bottom left well and Potassium Sulfate was at the bottom right well. When examine the dyes were equally distributed down the middle of the triangular shape of the section and we could see that the two chemicals interacted due to the precipitate it created above it. The second section had bovine albumin in the middle well and goat anti-horse albumin, goat anti-swine albumin, and goat anti-bovine albumin in the wells surrounding it. We determined had interacted with the anti-bovine albumin since a precipitation line was between the two. On the third section we did almost the exact same experiment only with hamburger extract in the middle. Since the precipitation line only existed near the anti-bovine albumin, the hamburger extract was pure cow beef.
Today I reviewed the unknown sheet to find out what my unknown bacteria are. The sample was Gram-positive staphylococci, which directed me to the Micrococcus, Streptococcus, and Staphylococcus genera. My bacteria had a positive catalase test, which eliminated Streptococcus as an option. The Mannitol test was negative so it was not Staphylococcus aureus. My bacteria had a yellow pigment so that eliminated the rest of the Staphylococcus choices. Since my bacteria do not ferment glucose, it cannot be M. varians, which means that my bacteria were M. luteus.
