Starch Case
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According to Norms and Richmond (1978), microorganisms display an extraordinary nutritional diversity. This nutritional diversity reflects the extreme diversity in physiological and biochemical respects. The physiological and biochemical characteristics can be used to identify unknown organism. The more common biochemical test that are used including fermentation of carbohydrates, utilization of specific substrate and the production of specific products or waste product. Some microorganisms do not use certain substrate inn their natural form, but they secrete extracellular enzymes to break down into simple units before they are consumed and used for growth and metabolic reaction. Certain reagents can be used to test for the absence of the end products of hydrolysis of such substrates (Wilson, 2005).
The ability or inability to use such substrate as sugar, amino acids citrate of production of the end products as a result of use of such compounds can be detected and used for biochemical test, it have been used since it was discovered that there were certain metabolic properties that were present in certain group (Pommerville, 2011). These physiological and biochemical properties have also been used clinically to identify organism. They are also taken into account when designing suitable culture media for use in the laboratories (Norms & Richmond, 1978). Microorganisms like bacteria produce acidic products, some carry fermentation of carbohydrates producing acidic or gaseous end products. Different species can be classified on the carbohydrates. There are certain test that are conducted when substance like urea, citrates and sugar are inoculated with pure culture (Chilton, 1993)