The indole test screens for the ability of an organism to degrade the amino acid tryptophan and produce indole. It is used as part of the IMViC procedures, a battery of tests designed to distinguish among members of the family Enterobacteriaceae. Tryptophan is an amino acid that can undergo deamination and hydrolysis by bacteria that express tryptophanase enzyme. The chief requirement for culturing an organism prior to performing the indole test is that the medium contains a sufficient quantity of tryptophan. The presence of indole when a microbe is grown in a medium rich in tryptophan demonstrates that an organism has the capacity to degrade tryptophan. Detection of indole, a by-product of tryptophan metabolism, relies upon the chemical reaction between indole and p-dimethylaminobenzaldehyde (DMAB) under acidic conditions to produce the red dye rosindole.
