GROUPING OF PSEUDOMONADS BY SDS-PAGE OF WHOLE-CELL PROTEINS

A numerical analysis was performed on one-dimensional whole-cell prote in electrophoretic fingerprints of 210 bacterial reference strains of the pseudomonads. Within the authentic genus Pseudomonas, uniform and distinct patterns were found for strains of the species P. aeruginosa, P. agarici, P. alcaligenes, P. amygdali, P. caricapapayae, P. chloror aphis, P. cichorii, P. coronafaciens, P. corrugata, P. ficuserectae, P . fragi, P. mendocina, P. pertucinogena, P, tolaasii and P. viridiflav a. A significant protein electrophoretic heterogeneity was observed wi thin the species P. fluorescens, P. marginaris, P. pseudoalcaligenes, P. putida, P. stanieri and P. stutzeri. Only the type strain was inclu ded of the species P. lundensis, P. meliae, P. mucidolens, P. oleovora ns, P. resinovorans, P. synxantha and P. taetrolens, and all of them o ccupied a separate position. Also the three investigated strains of th e complex species P. syringae grouped together in a single cluster Sim ilar profiles were obtained for representatives of the species P. aspl enii and P. fuscovaginae. Reference strains of a few species, previous ly classified in the genus Pseudomonas, and recently reclassified in t he genera Acidovarax, Burkholderia, Brevundimonas, Comamonas, Hydrogen ophaga and Ralstonia were included. The latter data demonstrated again that no genus-specific, but species-specific protein profiles were ob tained. Twenty-nine fresh isolates from polluted sites, presumably bel onging to the pseudomonads, were characterized using the SDS-PAGE data base. These data demonstrated that the technique provides a useful too l for the identification of newly isolated strains.