Ga. Dykes et A. Vonholy, TAXONOMIC STATUS OF ATYPICAL LACTOBACILLUS-SAKE AND LACTOBACILLUS-CURVATUS STRAINS ASSOCIATED WITH VACUUM-PACKAGED MEAT SPOILAGE, Current microbiology, 28(4), 1994, pp. 197-200
The taxonomic status of nine typical and atypical Lactobacillus sake a
nd Lactobacillus curvatus strains associated with vacuum-packaged meat
spoilage was investigated by DNA-DNA homology and compared with four
alternative identification methods. Phenotype-based identification met
hods as well as 23S rRNA targeted probes produced ambiguous results in
the case of atypical strains. DNA-DNA hybridization indicated homolog
ies of 63-78% between typical strains and the corresponding type strai
n, whereas values ranged from 38% to 54% for atypical strains. This ap
parent spectrum of relatedness observed was ascribed to the recent phy
logenetic divergence of the two species. Atypical strains should,there
fore, be designated as such and not assigned to particular species bas
ed on results of identification methods other than DNA-DNA hybridizati
on