Patent ID: 7470520

Claim:
A method of identifying Enterobacter , comprising the steps of: (a) obtaining a sample to be tested from a source where contamination is suspected; (b) incubating a portion of the sample with a first CHROMagar Orientation (CHRO) agar; or incubating a portion of the sample with an Xylose Lysine Desoxycholate (XLD) agar, selecting one or more mucoid yellow colonies without black centers from the XLD agar, applying a portion of each of the mucoid yellow colonies without black centers on a second CHRO agar and incubating the second CHRO agar; (c) isolating one or more cultures having metallic medium-to-dark-blue or purple-blue colonies on the first or second CHRO agar; (d) incubating a portion of each of the one or more cultures having metallic medium-to-dark-blue or purple-blue colonies separately on a Triple Sugar Iron (TSI) agar; (e) selecting one or more cultures growing on TSI agar, wherein the one or more cultures growing on TSI agar result in the TSI agar having a yellow (acidic) butt without blackening (H 2 S-negative); (f) incubating a portion of each of these one or more cultures growing on TSI agar separately with each of the materials selected from the group consisting of Voges-Proskauer broth (VP) and Motility medium (Mot); and (g) characterizing the phenotype of the one or more cultures as being a VP + Mot + H 2 S − , thereby identifying the one or more suspect Enterobacter culture as each being a strain of Enterobacter.