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Microbiology · Chapter 3

Gram-Positive vs Gram-Negative

Almost every bacterium is built on one of two wall designs. One stain tells you which. The answer is not just a color. It decides which drugs can reach the wall, and whether a dying cell can throw a body into septic shock. Switch the envelope, set the wall thickness, then run the stain.

Gram-positive envelopedrawn to scale in nanometers

Envelope cross section with a nanometer ruler
40 nm
Tap a layer in the drawing, or a feature in the list.

The Gram stain benchboth cells, same jar

Two cells through the four stain steps
6 s
Gram-positive cellnot stained
Gram-negative cellnot stained

Two cell wallspick an envelope, then a layer