Summary

This method is used to identify culturable bacteria in air, surface, solid or liquid samples. Bacterial strains are isolated in a pure culture and then macroscopic and microscopic features of the bacterial colonies are observed and simple biochemical tests are performed. One or more of the following techniques may be used for the final identification: MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, Sanger sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene or phenotyping of the strain using the Biolog system (biochemical tests).