Talk:TSI slant

An Issue
From the article:

"The Triple Sugar Iron or TSI test is a microbiological test roughly named for its ability to test microorganism's ability to ferment sugars and to utilize iron to produce hydrogen sulfide. It is often used in the selective identification of enteric bacteria including but not limited to Salmonella and Shigella."

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the iron in a TSI test there not to be utilised by the bacteria but to complex with sulphide ions to produce the observed black precipitate? I didn't know that it was actually utilized other than as an idicator of sorts.


 * Fixed. You're right. Iron in TSI agar is for the indicator of H2S, which is produced from mainly thiosulfate ion supplemented in the media.  However some bacteria also produce H2S from sulfur amino acids or sulfite ion. So I've simply removed "to utilize iron". --Y tambe (talk) 01:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)