Detection of phosphatase production by Staphylococcus species: a new method.

The ability of staphylococci to produce phosphatase is an important character in the identification of species in the genus. Current methods are slow and difficult to interpret. A test is described which uses p-nitrophenyl phosphate as the substrate. It was evaluated by testing 1035 reference and clinical strains, and also compared with an alternative method. All strains of Staphylococcus aureus and 83% of Staphylococcus epidermidis were phosphatase positive: all strains of Staphylococcus saprophyticus were negative. The method proved to be an accurate, reliable, economic and relatively rapid technique to detect phosphatase production.