Dye Uptake by Gram-Positive and Gram-Negative Cells as Related to Adsorption Laws

Abstract

Borzani and Vairo (1959) reported that grampositive and gram-negative microorganisms are fundamentally different with respect to crystal violet adsorption. They claimed that the binding of crystal violet by gram-positive cells followed the Freundlich and the Langmuir adsorption laws; whereas the binding of crystal violet by gram-negative cells did not follow any known adsorption law. The present paper presents evidence which does not support their conclusion regarding gram-negative cells. It has been found that the binding of crystal violet by both grampositive and gram-negative microorganisms can be interpreted as obeying adsorption laws.

Adsorption of Cationic (Basic) Dyes by Fixed Yeast Cells

“…Yeast is a grampositive organism, and, since cationic dyes are used in the Gram staining test, their adsorption properties in this case have special interest. There is evidence to suggest adsorption depends on the liquid-solid ratio Vairo, 1958, 1959;Vairo and Borzani, 1960;Finkelstein and Bartholomew, 1960) and that the mechanism of adsorption is ion exchange (McCalla, 1940(McCalla, , 1941a; Bartholomew, Roberts, and Evans, 1950;James, 1957).…”

Analysis of the Mechanism of Gram Differentiation by Use of a Filter-Paper Chromatographic Technique

“…The concept of differences in crystal violet affinity, as inferred by Stearn and Stearn (1928) and supported by Barbaro and Kennedy (1954), does not stand up under the test of quantitative measurements of the dye uptake of gram-positive and gram-negative cells (Bartholomew and Finkelstein, 1954; Bartholomew, 1956Bartholomew, , 1960. The concept of cell-wall affinity for crystal violet as proposed by Lamanna and Mallette (1954) also runs into difficulty on the basis of data which cannot be explained by this concept (Bartholomew and Finkelstein, 1958; Scherrer, 1963).…”