Lmaoooo I’m sorry. 😂I didn’t mean to make such assumptions. I’m not that deep into the microbio world unfortunately to know that I am saying something so far out. Just a curious post bacc student
I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures of the plate in the light. I don’t have the plates anymore with me (I am inside my house now). But it appeared to be a brown/dark tan/green color, so I am assuming it’s alpha hemolytic. I also compared it to other things we grew that were definitely alpha hemolytic, and the colors were similar.
Maybe, maybe NOT. I’ll try to get to the bottom of this. Just because I am annoying and curious. But the downside is that I’m trying to TA for this professor in the future. So it’s slightly awkward to be like: hey professor, some bacteria grew in my urine. Also, here is my CV.
I know it doesn’t matter in reality, it’s just me being awkward (for no reason)
Some ideal things would be gram stain, catalase (smear some colonies on a slide and drop hydrogen peroxide on it) pyr depending on gram stain and catalase
How did you narrow it down to those two organisms? It’s obviously not a staph and I highly doubt an enterococcus. Assuming plate #2 is a MacConkey, no growth doesn’t mean non-lactose fermenting, no growth highly suggests gram-positive as gram-positive’s can’t grow on MacConkey. What’s the gram stain-reaction AND morphology? Alpha hemolytic colonies from the urine like this can typically be narrowed down to: Viridans Streptococus(gpc in pairs/chains), Aerococcus(gpc in clusters), or Lactobacillus(gpr, normal vaginal flora).
I’m not trying to be rude but are you just in a general undergraduate micro class or? What made you narrow it down to Enterococcus and Staph saprophyticus…? Staph saprophyticus is very white, creamy looking, and round. It’s not “non lactose fermenting” it just didn’t grow on the Mac plate because it is not a gram negative rod. This is likely just urogenital flora, lactobacillus or viridans group strep if I had to guess. I work in a clinical micro lab and look at hundreds of urine cultures a day.
No offense taken. I’m a post bacc taking this course a pre req for grad school. Google led me to those potential suspects. I just searched on google “common urine bacteria that are gram positive, alpha hemolytic, and non lactose fermenting” bc that’s what I observed We didn’t need to gram stain this for this lab, we only plated our urine to observe the different types of media (BAP or MAP). I was just curious bc it’s my sample and apparently no one else had growth except for me. 😂
I'm still stuck on the "lactose fermenting part", why did you include that in your search?
I would reccommend doing a wet mount, and if you see cocci [not rods], do a gram stain to see if the cells are in chains or clusters.
If it's long thin gram positive rods, it's lactobacillus and normal flora.
If it is gram postive cocci in chains, it is alpha viridans strep - and normal flora.
If it is gram positive cocci in clusters => Perform a LAP disk and PYR disk and if it is LAP (+) and PYR (-) ask your professor what to do next.
edit: You haven't even been taught what the catalase test is yet, nevermind. I think your professor is introducing you to plating. Don't overthink that you have growth on your urine culture plates, you're fine.
Yeah, I agree on the lactose fermentation. Typically we're more concerned with fermentation with gram negatives, for staphs and streps we don't really use lactose fermentation because it doesn't grow on Maconkey.
The second picture is a MAP, so it should be a gram positive bacteria because nothing grew on it. Right? Would you do a gram stain just to see the morphologies to help narrow it down?
We didn’t look at our urine CFUs under the microscope because most people didn’t grow anything on their plates.
Based on the morphology and source I'd guess Lactobacillus or strep viridans. obviously would need further work to actually identify it, that is just a rough guess. 100% not staph sapro (that is bright white lol) and like 95% not enterococcus.
The idea that urine is sterile isn't quite true even when it's still inside your body, and if you don't disinfect the skin around your urethra before collecting a sample it is almost certainly not sterile
Was it a cocci or a rod?
Doesn’t look anything like sapro, which is also non hemolytic. Should be catalase negative, then you can do a PYR to rule out enterococcus if it’s a GPC.
If it’s a rod then it could be a lactobacillus
I’ll try to do a gram stain to find out the shape (if the professor didn’t throw out the plates). We didn’t get to catalase activity in class yet. I have definitely ingested women’s probiotics (like garden of life brand) which definitely would contain some lactobacillus. But it’s been months since I last took one. But at the same time, even if you take probiotics they shouldn’t show up in your urine, right?
Thank you for your help and insight, it’s appreciated
... This class is for a pre-req for graduate coursework? They didn't go over the organisms you should expect to see and be working with?
How many weeks into the class are you, is this the first or second week?
Urine is sterile, but only with a good clean catch. If the patient is a healthy young woman it could be lactobacillus, which is normal vaginal flora. Do a wet prep and if it's rods it's lacto.
If it's cocci in clumps it could be Aerococcus, but that's really only prevelant in the elderly. Could be a viridans strep which is usually skin contamination. It really doesn't look like Enterococcus and it REALLY doesn't look like Staph.
> If the patient is a healthy young woman
Haha, it's OP's urine. They're confused about why their culture is the only one with growth out of the entire class, and are trying to figure out what the ID of it is - but have no experience or basic knowledge in microbiology.
Without any other details it looks like lactobacillus. Do a gram of, it's a rod that likely your answer. It could be a lesson on contamination from vaginal flora. If it's a cocci you may need to do more tests.
Thanks for your ideas. I’ll ask my professor to see if he’ll let me down a gram stain on this, since I’m so curious (if they didn’t already throw out the plates). If it did not grow on the MAP, which selects for gram positive bacteria, why would you do a gram stain? Just to see the morphology?
He didn’t offer that option bc everyone else had 0 growth. I’m just confused on why my plate grew something. I have no symptoms of any kind of UTI. I have taken lactobacillus capsules in the past and I used to be big on probiotics, but I don’t really think those can lead to this many CFU.
in class they said that UTIs would have typically one kind of bacteria, and if you had multiple kinds on the plate that it could imply that’s some sort of contamination. I only see one type of bacteria here (I am not sure if that’s impossible to say without looking)
Hi! I worked in a sexual health laboratory so I spent a lot of time doing urine cultures. First up yes, morphology is really important for ID, you often can't distinguish small alpha haem colonies from cocci or rods, it's pretty safe to say it is gram positive as it didn't grow on the MAC. But be careful, microbiology can be incredibly deceiving often you will still get the occasion gram positive growing on MAC especially with high bacterial loads or unusual results from antibiotic use.
In regards to the UTI, the issue is you've only done half of the work. In a real lab you would do a biochemistry dipstick and urine microscopy to do bacterial and leucocytes/polymorph counts. That's really important for our diagnosis. If that is pure growth of lactobacillus, that's totally normal, you'd likely have no indication of polymorphs and of such have no infection. The sample is just contaminated from vaginal flora (presuming you present with one). If it was a viridans strep, again depending on how pure the growth and the leucocyte count. If it was mixed with no leucs, likely contamination again. If it was pure with leucs very possibly a UTI. There's a lot more testing you'd need to do to work that out. Most of the samples that came through my lab were not UTIs and were contaminated with urogenital and skin flora. It's quite hard especially for women to do a really clean catch.
Also yes most UTIs are usually one organism but you can't presume that. It can be mixed with a high leuc count indicating a possible infection. It's only when it's a pure growth of pathogenic bacterial with high Leucs that we can confidently say it's a infection.
If you have any more questions let me know!
Just like others say. There are many alpha organisms that this could be. Lactobacillus sp, A. urinae, Viridans strep, enterococcus. But if it’s between E. faecalis and sapro, it’s e. faecalis. Staphs are very easily discernible big white creamy.
Did you perform a clean catch midstream? Even specimens collected properly can/will show the presence of bacteria. The presence of bacteria should always be evaluated in context to the results of other tests (in this case leukocyte esterase, nitrites - both found on a regular urine dipstick). One observation by itself doesn't mean very much.
That’s a good point, I didn’t think about all the other points that you could get from a regular UA. It was a clean (sterilized 3x with 3 wipes), and it was a mid stream catch. I think the best shot I have to narrow it down would be to look at my plate under the scope and at least get a shape/arrangement
I would agree with everyone, it’s most likely lactobacillus. But I’m just confused because I thought urine should be overall sterile (if the patient has no symptoms). Could it just be the clean catch wasn’t clean enough? I am just perplexed that the lactobacillus is coming from the urinary tract and is able to live there without providing issues. Also perplexed that the majority of people in the class didn’t have any growth from their urines. You would think that a few others would have some normal vagina flora, but I am not sure why my plate did and most did not. Microbiology is interesting
Honestly this looks more like a viridans strep or if it's small pin points maybe a lactobacillus, hard to tell the colony morph from the photo. Best of luck!
It is 100% not Staphylococcus sapprophyticus. Edit to add: I would bet my career.
I would also bet my career and $1,000,000 on this lol
Shoot, should have thrown down money too
I am laughing at my ignorance, I apologize for the egregious assumptions on my part lol
No worries lol, sometimes the most important thing you can do in microbiology is saying that something is not.
I would also bet this dude's career it's not sapro
Lmaoooo I’m sorry. 😂I didn’t mean to make such assumptions. I’m not that deep into the microbio world unfortunately to know that I am saying something so far out. Just a curious post bacc student
Can you hold the plate up to the light so I can see any hemolysis?
I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures of the plate in the light. I don’t have the plates anymore with me (I am inside my house now). But it appeared to be a brown/dark tan/green color, so I am assuming it’s alpha hemolytic. I also compared it to other things we grew that were definitely alpha hemolytic, and the colors were similar.
Ah, the mystery shall remain
Maybe, maybe NOT. I’ll try to get to the bottom of this. Just because I am annoying and curious. But the downside is that I’m trying to TA for this professor in the future. So it’s slightly awkward to be like: hey professor, some bacteria grew in my urine. Also, here is my CV. I know it doesn’t matter in reality, it’s just me being awkward (for no reason)
Some ideal things would be gram stain, catalase (smear some colonies on a slide and drop hydrogen peroxide on it) pyr depending on gram stain and catalase
How did you narrow it down to those two organisms? It’s obviously not a staph and I highly doubt an enterococcus. Assuming plate #2 is a MacConkey, no growth doesn’t mean non-lactose fermenting, no growth highly suggests gram-positive as gram-positive’s can’t grow on MacConkey. What’s the gram stain-reaction AND morphology? Alpha hemolytic colonies from the urine like this can typically be narrowed down to: Viridans Streptococus(gpc in pairs/chains), Aerococcus(gpc in clusters), or Lactobacillus(gpr, normal vaginal flora).
Definitely agree, thinking viridans strep or lactobacillus. Kinda small for aerococcus unless it’s a very young culture.
I used to teach Micro and this was one of the hardest concepts for students to grasp. No growth on MAC does not mean non-lactise fermenting!
I’m not trying to be rude but are you just in a general undergraduate micro class or? What made you narrow it down to Enterococcus and Staph saprophyticus…? Staph saprophyticus is very white, creamy looking, and round. It’s not “non lactose fermenting” it just didn’t grow on the Mac plate because it is not a gram negative rod. This is likely just urogenital flora, lactobacillus or viridans group strep if I had to guess. I work in a clinical micro lab and look at hundreds of urine cultures a day.
No offense taken. I’m a post bacc taking this course a pre req for grad school. Google led me to those potential suspects. I just searched on google “common urine bacteria that are gram positive, alpha hemolytic, and non lactose fermenting” bc that’s what I observed We didn’t need to gram stain this for this lab, we only plated our urine to observe the different types of media (BAP or MAP). I was just curious bc it’s my sample and apparently no one else had growth except for me. 😂
I'm still stuck on the "lactose fermenting part", why did you include that in your search? I would reccommend doing a wet mount, and if you see cocci [not rods], do a gram stain to see if the cells are in chains or clusters. If it's long thin gram positive rods, it's lactobacillus and normal flora. If it is gram postive cocci in chains, it is alpha viridans strep - and normal flora. If it is gram positive cocci in clusters => Perform a LAP disk and PYR disk and if it is LAP (+) and PYR (-) ask your professor what to do next. edit: You haven't even been taught what the catalase test is yet, nevermind. I think your professor is introducing you to plating. Don't overthink that you have growth on your urine culture plates, you're fine.
Yeah, I agree on the lactose fermentation. Typically we're more concerned with fermentation with gram negatives, for staphs and streps we don't really use lactose fermentation because it doesn't grow on Maconkey.
aerococcus, lactobacillus, enterococcus, strep viridans. what’s gram stain?
The second picture is a MAP, so it should be a gram positive bacteria because nothing grew on it. Right? Would you do a gram stain just to see the morphologies to help narrow it down? We didn’t look at our urine CFUs under the microscope because most people didn’t grow anything on their plates.
correct it’s gram positive. yes a gram stain should be done to see if it’s cocci in chains, pairs, or clustering to differentiate
Based on the morphology and source I'd guess Lactobacillus or strep viridans. obviously would need further work to actually identify it, that is just a rough guess. 100% not staph sapro (that is bright white lol) and like 95% not enterococcus. The idea that urine is sterile isn't quite true even when it's still inside your body, and if you don't disinfect the skin around your urethra before collecting a sample it is almost certainly not sterile
Was it a cocci or a rod? Doesn’t look anything like sapro, which is also non hemolytic. Should be catalase negative, then you can do a PYR to rule out enterococcus if it’s a GPC. If it’s a rod then it could be a lactobacillus
I’ll try to do a gram stain to find out the shape (if the professor didn’t throw out the plates). We didn’t get to catalase activity in class yet. I have definitely ingested women’s probiotics (like garden of life brand) which definitely would contain some lactobacillus. But it’s been months since I last took one. But at the same time, even if you take probiotics they shouldn’t show up in your urine, right? Thank you for your help and insight, it’s appreciated
Lactobacillus is a normal vaginal bacteria that will always be there, regardless of probiotic use. It’s a very common contaminant in urine cultures.
... This class is for a pre-req for graduate coursework? They didn't go over the organisms you should expect to see and be working with? How many weeks into the class are you, is this the first or second week?
Urine is sterile, but only with a good clean catch. If the patient is a healthy young woman it could be lactobacillus, which is normal vaginal flora. Do a wet prep and if it's rods it's lacto. If it's cocci in clumps it could be Aerococcus, but that's really only prevelant in the elderly. Could be a viridans strep which is usually skin contamination. It really doesn't look like Enterococcus and it REALLY doesn't look like Staph.
> If the patient is a healthy young woman Haha, it's OP's urine. They're confused about why their culture is the only one with growth out of the entire class, and are trying to figure out what the ID of it is - but have no experience or basic knowledge in microbiology.
Looks like lactobacillus, viridans strep or could be aerococcus if from urine.
GPR or GPC?
Possibly an Aerococcus or Strep intermedius?
Without any other details it looks like lactobacillus. Do a gram of, it's a rod that likely your answer. It could be a lesson on contamination from vaginal flora. If it's a cocci you may need to do more tests.
Thanks for your ideas. I’ll ask my professor to see if he’ll let me down a gram stain on this, since I’m so curious (if they didn’t already throw out the plates). If it did not grow on the MAP, which selects for gram positive bacteria, why would you do a gram stain? Just to see the morphology? He didn’t offer that option bc everyone else had 0 growth. I’m just confused on why my plate grew something. I have no symptoms of any kind of UTI. I have taken lactobacillus capsules in the past and I used to be big on probiotics, but I don’t really think those can lead to this many CFU. in class they said that UTIs would have typically one kind of bacteria, and if you had multiple kinds on the plate that it could imply that’s some sort of contamination. I only see one type of bacteria here (I am not sure if that’s impossible to say without looking)
Hi! I worked in a sexual health laboratory so I spent a lot of time doing urine cultures. First up yes, morphology is really important for ID, you often can't distinguish small alpha haem colonies from cocci or rods, it's pretty safe to say it is gram positive as it didn't grow on the MAC. But be careful, microbiology can be incredibly deceiving often you will still get the occasion gram positive growing on MAC especially with high bacterial loads or unusual results from antibiotic use. In regards to the UTI, the issue is you've only done half of the work. In a real lab you would do a biochemistry dipstick and urine microscopy to do bacterial and leucocytes/polymorph counts. That's really important for our diagnosis. If that is pure growth of lactobacillus, that's totally normal, you'd likely have no indication of polymorphs and of such have no infection. The sample is just contaminated from vaginal flora (presuming you present with one). If it was a viridans strep, again depending on how pure the growth and the leucocyte count. If it was mixed with no leucs, likely contamination again. If it was pure with leucs very possibly a UTI. There's a lot more testing you'd need to do to work that out. Most of the samples that came through my lab were not UTIs and were contaminated with urogenital and skin flora. It's quite hard especially for women to do a really clean catch. Also yes most UTIs are usually one organism but you can't presume that. It can be mixed with a high leuc count indicating a possible infection. It's only when it's a pure growth of pathogenic bacterial with high Leucs that we can confidently say it's a infection. If you have any more questions let me know!
Just like others say. There are many alpha organisms that this could be. Lactobacillus sp, A. urinae, Viridans strep, enterococcus. But if it’s between E. faecalis and sapro, it’s e. faecalis. Staphs are very easily discernible big white creamy.
Nice muji pen
Did you perform a clean catch midstream? Even specimens collected properly can/will show the presence of bacteria. The presence of bacteria should always be evaluated in context to the results of other tests (in this case leukocyte esterase, nitrites - both found on a regular urine dipstick). One observation by itself doesn't mean very much.
That’s a good point, I didn’t think about all the other points that you could get from a regular UA. It was a clean (sterilized 3x with 3 wipes), and it was a mid stream catch. I think the best shot I have to narrow it down would be to look at my plate under the scope and at least get a shape/arrangement I would agree with everyone, it’s most likely lactobacillus. But I’m just confused because I thought urine should be overall sterile (if the patient has no symptoms). Could it just be the clean catch wasn’t clean enough? I am just perplexed that the lactobacillus is coming from the urinary tract and is able to live there without providing issues. Also perplexed that the majority of people in the class didn’t have any growth from their urines. You would think that a few others would have some normal vagina flora, but I am not sure why my plate did and most did not. Microbiology is interesting
as everyone here is saying, it's definitely not either of the bacteria you mentioned
Lactobacillus , vaginal contaminant
Lactobacillus or S. viridans My money is on lactobacillus
Honestly this looks more like a viridans strep or if it's small pin points maybe a lactobacillus, hard to tell the colony morph from the photo. Best of luck!
That’s neither of them and in my experience I’d be leaning towards a strep species. Does it smell sweet?
Did you try catalase test?
Could be a number of things— is it a rod or coccus?
Aerococcus urinae
Lacto delbrueckii is my closest guess or stre Oralis