The Identification of Neisseria gonorrhoeae by Means of Bacterial Variation and the Detection of Small Colony Forms in Clinical Material

Abstract

A strain of N. gonorrhoeae was isolated from the cervical and vaginal specimens from a patient which produced very small colonies on solid medium and did not ferment glucose. By dissociating the strain into the normally large colony form, the strain was readily identified as N. gonorrhoeae by its fermentation of glucose and agglutination with chicken antigonococcal serum. Small colony variants of N. gonorrhoeae were encountered in 3 out of 135 cases of gonococcal infections in [female][female] .