Visualizing Environmental Bacteria with Gram Stain

Gram staining helps scientists visualize bacteria collected from environmental sources. It is a fast, practical method for sorting culturable bacterial populations of interest. For environmental microbiologists, this can be useful whether the sample comes from a known isolate in the lab or from soil or water collected in the...

Gram staining allows for quick visualization of bacterial morphology and broad cellular distinction from a wide range of environmental samples. To stain bacteria, a uniform smear is applied to a glass side and allowed to dry. After heat-fixing the smear, crystal violet is applied.

A decolorizing agent rinses away the crystal violet from Gr...