Summary
Extraction of lipid by chloroform-methanol from Escherichia coli induces Gram positivity in the cells of this bacterium. It has been observed that approximately 1.5 times more lipid is extracted from Escherichia coli than from Staphylococcus aureus by this treatment. An increase of 1.5–1.8 fold in the retention of dye has been evident in the case of S. aureus where as this was 70–90 fold in the case of E. coli, which is 1/4th of the normal retention by S. aureus. The more lipid present in the cell wall or cell membrane, the less retention of dye seems to be exhibited by the bacteria. This also substantiates our model for Gram reaction presented in a previous communication.
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Basu, P.S., Biswas, B.B. & Pal, M.K. Gram positivity induced in Escherichia coli by chloroform-methanol treatment. Histochemie 16, 150–153 (1968). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00280611
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00280611