GBF - Gesellschaft für Biotechnologische Forschung
Abstract
Spreading and non-spreading colonies of yellow pigmented, flexirubin-
positive bacteria were observed regularly on agar plates inoculated
with samples from different activated sludge and trickling
filter sources. One part of the non-spreading colonies formed spreading
colonies after transfer to more suitable growth media. The other
part was never observed to form spreading colonies on various growth
media tested. However, when examined microscopically in wet mount
preparations most of the non-spreading isolates showed the same type
of gliding motility as the spreading isolates. In order to test the
taxonomic homogeneity as well as possible relationships to "classical"
cytophagas, 25 non-spreading isolates were examined for 41 morphological
and physiological characteristics. Of the strains tested,
19 had more than 80 % of the characteristics in common. Besides their
deviating colony growth, the isolates differed from "classical" cytophagas
by their more complex growth requirements and by a less wide
spectrum of degradation capacities. It is concluded that the nonspreading
isolates represent a distinct cluster within a Cytophaga
group comprising all strains with gliding motility, flexirubin pigmentation
and a G + C base ratio in the range of 32 - 36 %