Analysis of cellular fatty acids by gas chromatography as a tool in the identification of medically important coryneform bacteria

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The fatty acid methyl esters of 19 unidentified pathogenic coryneform bacteria were analyzed by GLC and the resulting profiles were compared with those of type or reference strains of possibly related species, namely Caseobacter polymorphus, Corynebacterium bovis, C. diphtheriae, C. xerosis and Rhodococcus equi. All of the strains had distinct fatty acid profiles, but most of them conformed to a general pattern, with high levels of octadecanoic acids and only trace amounts of 10-methyl octadecanoic acid (tuberculostearic acid). These profiles were very similar to those from C. diphtheriae and C. xerosis, but could be differentiated from C. bovis, C. polymorphus, R. equi and 2 unidentified pathogenic strains which had significantly higher levels of tuberculostearic acid.