Fatty acid profile of Simonsiella and Alysiella

Includes bibliographical references (pages 42-44)Gas liquid chromatographic analysis of 50 strains has shown that the fatty acid composition of the genus Simonsiella, a gliding bacterium found in the oral cavity of warm blooded animals, is not unlike that of some other Gram-negative bacteria and consists predominantly of tetradecanoic acid (mean 29.67%), 9-hexadecenoic acid (mean 22.12%), an unidentified acid with an ECL of approximately 20 (mean 14.63%), and dodecanoic acid (mean 11.27%).\ud A phenogram of Simonsiellaceae, constructed from a numerical taxonomy computer analysis of the quantities of 12 fatty acids, revealed several groupings of organisms that correlated with the source of isolation (sheep, cat, human, or dog).\ud Differences existed in the mean relative percentages of three fatty acids for Simonsiella strains from a given source of isolation. The sheep strains contained 11.73% 9-octadecenoic acid acid compared to means between 2 and 5% for the strains of cat, human, and dog origin. The cat strains had a mean of 15.33% hexadecanoic acid compared to means of 5 to 9% for the three other groups, and the human strains had a mean of 36.54% tetradecanoic acid compared to means ranging between 24 to 29% for the three other groups. A diagnostic key for Simonsiella isolates of sheep, cat, human, and dog origin is proposed on the basis of the (l) 9-octadecenoic acid, (2) hexadecanoic acid, and (2) hexadecanoic acid, and (3) tetradecanoic acid contents