Scribd
Upload
5K views

Discussion of Lab Report Mic 125 Exercise 2

The document discusses simple staining techniques used to visualize cell structures under a microscope. It describes observations of onion skin cells and cheek cells at different magnifications. Onion skin cells appeared brick-like with visible nuclei, while cheek cells were more spread out and rounded. Bacterial cells like E. coli and Bacillus subtilis were also observed and showed rod shapes and arrangements. However, structures of bacterial cells could not be clearly detected without high magnification.

Uploaded by

Ct
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
5K views

Discussion of Lab Report Mic 125 Exercise 2

The document discusses simple staining techniques used to visualize cell structures under a microscope. It describes observations of onion skin cells and cheek cells at different magnifications. Onion skin cells appeared brick-like with visible nuclei, while cheek cells were more spread out and rounded. Bacterial cells like E. coli and Bacillus subtilis were also observed and showed rod shapes and arrangements. However, structures of bacterial cells could not be clearly detected without high magnification.

Uploaded by

Ct
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Discussion

Simple staining is a method that is used in microscopy to enhance the visualization of


microscopic images. Stains and dyes are the two major chemicals that are usually used in
simple staining to examine the structure and the morphology of the bacterial cell. In this
experiment, methylene blue solution was used to stain the bacterial smears. The methylene
blue solution is used to stain animal cells to make their nuclei more observable for viewing
under the microscope.
When observed the onion skin cell, the cells looked as on a brick-like structure and
within the cells, small dots (the nuclei) can be seen. When the specimen was observed under
microscope with total magnification 40x, there were about a hundred rows of rectangular
cells, but as the total magnification were changed into another, the number of cells in the
field of view decreased.
When observed the onion skin cell at (400x) of total magnification, the nuclei of the cells
looked clearer and larger and able to study the cell with more understanding compared to
the first magnification. The organelles that was observed in this type of cell were the
nucleus, the cytoplasm and the cell wall. Unlike the onion skin cells, the cheek cells were
more spread out from each other and they all had a round shape. When observed the cheek
cells at 40X total magnification, the cells were secluded and spread out. At 400X total
magnification, the image viewed one cell at a time, due to the fact that the cells were
separated from each other. The organelles that were visible in this type of cell were the
nucleus, the cytoplasm and the cell membrane. Aside from the actual cells, the air bubbles
could be observed within both the onion skin cell slide and the cheek cell slide.
Due to the staining procedure, the morphology of the bacterial cell will be clearly seen
when examined under the oil immersion. From the observation, we can infer that Escherichia
coli or called as E.coli are rod-shaped bacteria. However, the difference in their arrangement
could be observed clearly. For example, E.coli were arranged in an individual manner with
noticeable space between each cell, whereas as the theoretical manner, Bacillus subtilis
should to be longer than E.coli. Thus, the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus appears oval shaped,
like a bunched grape like clusters. It is also very small in size compared to the other two
bacteria.
Questions

1) How would a stained preparation appear under oil-immersion objective without the
oil between the slide and the objective lens? Why if you dont know, try it.

When the specimen was observed under the microscope without the oil-immersion,
the image that appear was clear and could be seen as well. But, after using the oil-
immersion objective to observe the stained, the image of the stained specimen was
very clearly and the image seems to arise clearly.

2) What are the structural differences between the animal and plant cell? Could you
observe this exercise?

The differences between the animal and plant cell are shown in the table below

Differences Animal cell ( cheek cell ) Plant cell ( onion cell )

Cell wall Absent Present in the formed of


cellulose
Shape Round shape (irregular) Rectangular shape (fixed)
Chloroplast Absent Present because they
make their own food

Cilia present Most plant cell do not


contain cilia
Vacuole Much smaller than plant cells Large central vacuole

3) Could you detect the presence or the absence of the structures in question 2in the
bacterial cell? Why?

No, the structures of the bacterial cells cannot be observed clearly to detect the
presence of their different structures like the cell membrane, cytoplasm, the nucleus
and their cell wall. This is because, the bacterial cell is very small to observe it, it cannot
be observed clearly with the total magnification of 1000x but have to above than that.
For example, like the staphylococcus aureus. But, it could be clearly seen with the use
of oil-immersion between the slide and the objective lens. For example, Escherichia
coli or called as E.coli.

You might also like