Description
Each vial contains 2 ml of lyophilised oxalated rabbit plasma, which is reconstituted by adding 2 ml of sterile distilled or deionised water to the vial.
Principle of the test:
The ability of strains of Staphylococcus aureus to form a fibrin clot in plasma is the most widely used and accepted criteria for the identification of frankly pathogenic strains of staphylococci, i.e. Staph. aureus in human infections and Staphylococcus intermedius and Staph. hyicus in animal infections. There are two ways of performing the test. The tube test detects free coagulase and the slide test detects bound coagulase, also known as ‘clumping factor’. The presence of free coagulase is regarded as the more definitive test, however the slide test for the detection of clumping factor is often used as a more rapid screening test and, when combined with a test for deoxyribonuclease production (Amyl DNase Agar, AM45), can be regarded as equivalent to the tube test, although it should be noted that the coagulase positive animal strains of staphylococci, Staph.hyicus and Staph.intermedius do not produce clumping factor and take longer to produce a fibrin clot in the tube test than do strains of Staphylococcus aureus1
