ALLOZYME VARIABILITY IN STRAINS OF SOIL B ACILLI RELATED TO BACILLUS-SUBTILIS

Allozyme variability in 37 strains of soil bacilli related to Bacillus subtilis was studied. A study of electrophoretic mobility of correspo nding enzymes showed that, with one expertion the strains did not diff er essentially from the standard strain Bacillus subtilis 168 Marburg, in accordance with the results on electrophoretic mobility of corresp onding enzymes. However, considerable genetic diversity was revealed a t the intraspecific level in the population of bacilli under study. Of the 8 isoenzyme loci, 7 were polymorphic, and the average number of a lleles per locus was 3.14. The extent of genetic diversity and the Nei 's genetic distance were, on average 0.28 and 0.46, respectively. Sign ificant correlation (r = 0.836) between the value of genetic distance and the level of the DNA-DNA hybridization of the strains was demonstr ated.