A phenotypic technique that examines the ability of bacteriophages, which are viruses capable of infecting and lysing bacterial cells, to attack certain strains is:

Question

a. biotyping.
b. antibiograms.
c. bacteriocin typing.
d. bacteriophage typing.

Answer 1

D
Classic phenotypic techniques include biotyping (analyzing unique biologic or biochemical cha-racteristics), antibiograms (analyzing antimicrobial susceptibility patterns), and serotyping (se-rologic typing of bacterial or viral antigens, such as bacterial cell wall [O] antigens). Bacterio-phage typing, which examines the ability of bacteriophages (viruses capable of infecting and lysing bacterial cells), and bacteriocin typing, which examines an organism's susceptibility to bacterial peptides (proteins) to attack certain strains, have been useful for typing P. aeruginosa and S. aureus, respectively. These techniques, however, are not widely available.