CONFIRMATION OF HUMAN CAMPYLOBACTER-CONCISUS ISOLATES MISIDENTIFIED AS CAMPYLOBACTER-MUCOSALIS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVED DIFFERENTIATIONBETWEEN THE 2 SPECIES

A strain from human diarrhea originally identified as Campylobacter mu cosalis (NCTC 12408) was examined by using 64 phenotypic characters. T he similarity of this strain to 297 isolates of Campylobacter, Helicob acter, Arcobacter, and related taxa was then determined with a compute r-supported data analysis program, MVSP. NCTC 12408 showed closest sim ilarity to 20 type, reference, and field isolates of Campylobacter con cisus. These strains were clearly separated from those of C. mucosalis in the numerical analysis of phenotypic tests; a table was constructe d from the data used to aid in differentiating these two species in th e clinical laboratory. The identity of NCTC 12408 was confirmed as C. concisus by visual comparison of its sodium dodecyl sulfatepolyacrylam ide gel whole-cell protein electrophoregram with those of type strains of C. concisus and C. mucosalis. These data suggest that genuine huma n infection with C. mucosalis has not yet been reported.