Differentiating bacteria?

Question

what are two or three difficulties that you might encounter in tyring to differentiate bacteria on the basis of differential tests characteristics?

Answer 1

when differentiating bacteria, you will use stains to recognize the different bacteria.  some problems you might see are problems with the cell wall and the way the peptidoglycan is assembled into the actual wall.  In some bacteria, the cell wall of peptidoglycan is interwoven like a wall, and the stain is more easily absorbed.  in other bacteria, the cell wall is not as loosely woven and stains are no easily absorbed.  

also, different stains are used to differentiate bacteria and some stains are not accepted by certain bacteria. basic stains, absorb right into the cell cytoplasm because the charge inside the cell is positively charge.  acidic stains, will not go into the cell cytoplasm, only coloring the background. this poses a problem and you cannot tell what it is. you will in turn have to do more staining and differentiating tests.

may not be exactly what you want, but we just talked about this in my college microbiology class! :) hope it helps!

Answer 2

i don't know.