M. Bosch et Te. Cloete, THE IDENTIFICATION AND CLASSIFICATION OF ACINETOBACTER STRAINS EXHIBITING VARIATIONS IN PHOSPHATE ACCUMULATION BY SDS-PAGE AND NUMERICAL-ANALYSIS, Current microbiology, 27(3), 1993, pp. 169-175
The limitation of phosphate concentrations in effluents is of internat
ional concern because of the risk of eutrophication. Acinetobacter spp
. have often been isolated from activated sludge plants exhibiting enh
anced phosphate removal. The ability to remove phosphate from mixed li
quor by Acinetobacter isolates and reference strains was, therefore, d
etermined. The ability to remove phosphate was found to vary among the
Acinetobacter strains. The taxonomic relationships among these variou
s strains were elucidated by SDS-PAGE and numerical analysis, and the
correlation between their taxonomy and phosphate uptake ability was de
termined. The ability to remove large amounts of phosphate was found t
o be strain specific rather than species specific. The classification
of A. haemolyticus and A. baumannii as separate species is questioned.