Michael J. Surgalla1, Earl D. Beesley1
1Medical Sciences Laboratories, Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland 21701
Tóm tắt
Ability to detect pigmented and nonpigmented
Pasteurella pestis
is essential in plague research, and is currently dependent on use of the synthetic hemin-agar of Jackson and Burrows. We have devised a new differential medium for this purpose, containing Congo red dye and common, commercially available laboratory media. The ease and simplicity of preparation make the Congo red-agar a practical routine laboratory tool in plague research. These findings, possibly indicating a common binding site for hematin and Congo red, should be useful in efforts to determine the chemical nature of a bacterial component associated with high virulence in
P. pestis
.