The Journal of Medical Microbiology, Vol 35, Issue 1 45-48, Copyright © 1991 by Society for General Microbiology

JOURNAL ARTICLE

Susceptibility to desferrioxamine: a new test for the identification of Staphylococcus epidermidis

J. A. Lindsay and T. V. Riley
Department of Microbiology, University of Western Australia, Nedlands.

The ability to identify Staphylococcus epidermidis quickly and accurately has become increasingly important in clinical microbiology. Susceptibility to desferrioxamine, an iron-chelating agent, was investigated as a new test for the identification of S. epidermidis. All strains of S. epidermidis and S. hominis tested were susceptible to a 1000-micrograms disk of desferrioxamine when grown on brain heart infusion agar. All other strains of coagulase-negative staphylococci, S. aureus and micrococci were resistant. As a single test, susceptibility to desferrioxamine was 96.4% efficient in identifying S. epidermidis; when combined with additional tests such as alkaline phosphatase production and fermentation of trehalose, the efficiency improved to 100%. Desferrioxamine disks were easy to prepare, stable and inexpensive. The test was simple to perform and interpret and should readily find application in clinical microbiology laboratories.

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