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[1] [2] Once stained as part of a sample, these organisms can resist the acid and/or ethanol-based decolorization procedures common in many staining protocols, hence the name acid-fast. [ 2 ] The mechanisms of acid-fastness vary by species although the most well-known example is in the genus Mycobacterium , which includes the species ...
The genus is acid-fast to some degree, it stains only weakly Gram positive. The most common form of human nocardial disease is a slowly progressive pneumonia, the common symptoms of which include cough, dyspnea (shortness of breath), and fever. It is not uncommon for this infection to spread to the pleura or chest wall.
These acid-fast organisms like Mycobacterium contain large amounts of lipid substances within their cell walls called mycolic acids. These acids resist staining by ordinary methods such as a Gram stain. [9] It can also be used to stain a few other bacteria, such as Nocardia. The reagents used for Ziehl–Neelsen staining are carbol fuchsin ...
The Kinyoun method can be modified as a weak acid fast stain, which uses 0.5–1.0% sulfuric acid instead of hydrochloric acid.The weak acid fast stain, in addition to staining Mycobacteria, will also stain organisms that are not able to maintain the carbol fuchsin after decolorizing with HCl, such as Nocardia species and Cryptosporidium.
The two most common methods for visualizing these acid-fast bacilli as bright red against a blue background are the Ziehl-Neelsen stain and modified Kinyoun stain. Fite's stain is used to color M. leprae cells as pink against a blue background. Rapid Modified Auramine O Fluorescent staining has specific binding to slowly-growing mycobacteria ...
Gram-positive, nonmotile and acid-fast rods (1-3 μm x 0.2-0.4 μm). Sometimes long rods with occasional beaded or swollen cells having non-acid-fast ovoid bodies at one end. Colony characteristics. Smooth hemispheric colonies, usually off-white or cream colored. May be butyrous, waxy, multilobate and even rosette clustered (dilute inocula).
They have no flagella or fimbria, and no capsule. [citation needed] Mycobacterium tuberculosis group bacteria are 1.0-4.0 μm long by 0.2-0.3 μm wide in tissues. In culture, they may appear as cocci, or as bacilli up to 6-8 μm long. [citation needed] The bacteria stain Gram-positive, acid-fast. The cell wall contains as high as 60% lipid ...
Sputum smears and cultures should be done for acid-fast bacilli if the patient is producing sputum. [1] The preferred method for this is fluorescence microscopy (auramine-rhodamine staining), which is more sensitive than conventional Ziehl–Neelsen staining. [4]