Gram staining

Gram staining or Gram stain, also called Gram's method, is a method of staining used to differentiate bacterial species into two large groups (gram-positive and gram-negative). The name comes from the Danish bacteriologist Hans Christian Gram, who developed the technique.

Gram staining differentiates bacteria by the chemical and physical properties of their cell walls by detecting peptidoglycan, which is present in the cell wall of Gram-positive bacteria. Gram-positive bacteria retain the crystal violet dye, and thus are stained violet, while the Gram-negative bacteria do not; after washing, a counterstain is added (commonly safranin or fuchsine) that will stain these Gram-negative bacteria a pink color. Both Gram-positive bacteria and Gram-negative bacteria pick up the counterstain. The counterstain, however, is unseen on Gram-positive bacteria because of the darker crystal violet stain.

The Gram stain is almost always the first step in the preliminary identification of a bacterial organism. While Gram staining is a valuable diagnostic tool in both clinical and research settings, not all bacteria can be definitively classified by this technique. This gives rise to gram-variable and gram-indeterminate groups.

The method is named after its inventor, the Danish scientist Hans Christian Gram (1853–1938), who developed the technique while working with Carl Friedländer in the morgue of the city hospital in Berlin in 1884. Gram devised his technique not for the purpose of distinguishing one type of bacterium from another but to make bacteria more visible in stained sections of lung tissue. He published his method in 1884, and included in his short report the observation that the typhus bacillus did not retain the stain.

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