Question

A student creates a gram stain on a bacterial sample that has a mix of gram-negative and gram-positive organisms. The student accidentally forgets the decolorizer step. What would the outcome of the gram stain be?

Answer 1

Answer:

All the bacteria would appear purple(gram- positive)

Explanation:

Gram stain is used for distinguishing gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. Gram-positive bacteria appear purple because it does not gets destain after decolorizing step and gram-negative bacteria appears read or pink because it gets decolorized after decolorizing step and then it gets stained by safranin which provides a pink color to gram-negative bacteria.

So if a student forgot the decolorizing step then gram-negative bacteria will not get decolorized and will not take safranin stain so even gram-negative cells will appear violet. Therefore all the bacteria will appear violet or purple(gram-positive).