Etude physiologique et taxonomique du genre Alcaligenes: A. denitrificans, A. odorans et A. faecalis

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Abstract
We have studied 43 strains of the species Alcaligenes denitrificans, A. odorans, and A. faecalis. Twenty-five of them were isolated by enrichment culture on minimal medium containing an organic acid (L-malate, succinate, tartrate, adipate, or itaconate) and N2O as a respiratory electron acceptor. These constitute a single phenon with the A. denitrificans strain type and 9 other strains isolated from clinical specimens. However, strain 4 differs from the other 34 strains in 12 nutritional characters, in its ability to effect a meta cleavage of diphenols, and by the absence of tetrathionate reductase. The percentages of G + C are the following: strains isolated from soil, 66.4 ± 1.1; collection strains, 67.0 ± 1.3. The 5 strains of A. odorans differ from the 34 strains of A. denitrificans (not including strain 4) in their inability to denitrify nitrate and use D-saccharate, adipate, pimelate, suberate, β-hydroxy-β-methylglutarate, meso-tartrate, azelate, and itaconate. Their percentage of G + C is much lower: 56.1 ± 0.4. From the nutritional point of view the 3 strains of A. faecalis resemble A. denitrificans. However, they differ from the latter by their inability to grow anaerobically on NO3−, NO2−, N2O, and S4O62−, and by a slightly lower percentage of G + C: 64.3 ± 0.0. The 43 strains synthesize poly-β-hydroxybutyric acid. None of them is chemolithotrophic.