Colonial morphology of Escherichia coli: impact of detection in clinical specimens

Abstract

As part of bacteriological identification, the macroscopic observation of the colonies on a culture medium is a critical step as it allows the clinical microbiologist to conduct a primary screening of microorganisms and in some cases even to identify them. This study shows how the macroscopic observation of the colonies, in particular of the colonies of Escherichia coli isolated on MacConkey agar from various clinical specimens, allowed to identify 5 classes of morphological variants of the colonies or colonial morphology, thanks to the knowledge and the experience gained by the clinical microbiologist.

Keywords

• Escherichia coli
• colonial morphology
• macroscopic expression
• MacConkey agar