Jp. Encinas et al., EVALUATION OF DIFFERENT SYSTEMS FOR THE IDENTIFICATION OF BACILLUS STRAINS ISOLATED FROM SPANISH FERMENTED SAUSAGES, Meat science, 42(2), 1996, pp. 127-131
Sixty-nine isolates obtained during the manufacture and ripening of Sp
anish fermented sausages were identified to species level using the Vi
tek Bacillus biochemical card, the dichotomous key and table proposed
by Berkeley et al. ((1984). In Methods in Microbiology, Vol. 16. Acade
mic Press, London, p. 291), morphological and physiological tests and
the API 20E miniaturized system. None of the tested systems was entire
ly satisfactory and the final identification was mainly done on the ba
sis of cellular morphology and the table of test results. Our isolates
belonged to the species: B. subtilis (37), B. megaterium (22), B. pum
ilus (5), B. circulans (3) and unidentified (2). Forty-five cultures (
65.2%) were accurately identified with the dichotomous key. A similar
figure for the Vitek Bacillus biochemical card was 36%. The results of
the API 20E system were very reproducible, especially those of the Vo
ges-Proskauer test. Most of the strains of B. megaterium were misident
ified as B. subtilis with the dichotomous key. On the other hand, a hi
gh percentage of the cultures belonging to B, subtilis were misidentif
ied as B. megaterium with the Vitek system.