On Monday,

we turned in our masterpieces (IJSEM paper). However, there was still work to be done. Previously in the class, we made a list of all the tests left to be done, so today we were able to mark a few off the list. We streaked our 26 strains onto agar plates containing casein. We will check them in a couple of weeks. A clearing in the milky media we be a positive test. We also performed tests for catalase and oxidase. The catalase tests was familiar to most of us having taken general micro lab back in the day. Cells were inoculated into a small drop of hydrogen peroxide. The presence of bubbles denotes a positive test (the bubbles are oxygen). For the oxidase tests, cells were placed on filter paper. A drop of oxidase solution was placed onto of the cells. A color change, mostly a blue color change, denotes a positive test. The majority of our strains were positive for catalase and negative for oxidase. The results of these tests are on the spreadsheet. Unfortunately, the Luedemann (1968) paper did not perform catalase or oxidase tests to compare my strains to.
We also determined that our soil isolate, GB-20, grew the best on R2A and 1/10 PCA.
On Wednesday, we enjoyed pizza and donuts, courtesy of Dr. Rainey. Thank you!!! They were delicious. We also talked about the final, database, and lab notebook which are all due or take place on Monday. Yikes! Finals week got here so fast.