While performing the acid-fast stain procedure, you heat your fixed bacteria with carbolfuchsin for 5 minutes, let the slide cool, and then rinse with water. what is your next step?

In the acid-fast or Ziehl-Neelsen stain, following the referred washing, the slide should be covered in 1%-3% acid alcohol to decolourise until the smear turns into light pink. After that, wash well with clean water to stop the decolourisation.

The correct answer out of the four provided options is given by

option C). may change the substrate specificity of the enzyme.

Explanation:

This can be explained as substitution of a single amino acid in the active site of an enzyme will result in the alteration of activity in a protein as this substitution, in fact, has an affect on the assembly, folding or activity. An active site aids to bind the substrate to the enzyme. In case, it gets altered the specificity of the enzyme will be lost to a substrate and hence efficiency will be affected too