Ultrastructure of Butyrivibrio fibrisolvens: a gram-positive bacterium

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Abstract
The cells of bacteria of the genus Butyrivibrio are universally described as being gram negative and they produce an unequivocal gram-negative reaction in the standard staining procedure. Their cell walls contain derivatives of teichoic acid, which are characteristic of gram-positive cells. The cell walls of 2 representative strains of Butyrivibrio [B. fibrisolvens and Butyrivibrio sp.] were of the gram-positive morphological type, as seen by EM, but they were very thin (12-18 nm). The thinness of these cell walls may account for the tendency of these cells to stain gram negatively in the standard staining procedure. Ru red staining revealed an extracellular structure surrounding cells of Butyrivibrio sp. (strain C3). This structure was composed of individual knobs that sometimes mediated cell-to-cell adhesion in the culture.