Preliminary differentiation of food strains of Chryseobacterium and Empedobacter using multilocus enzyme electrophoresis

The multilocus enzyme electrophoresis (MEE) technique was applied to food isolates shown to belong in the genera Chryseobacterium and Empedobacter. One hundred and thirty isolates of which 27 were reference strains, were used in this study. On the basis of the MEE data, the isolates were placed in seven electrophoretic clusters. Ninety-one isolates were clustered in Group I and included Chryseobacterium indologenes, Chryseobacterium gleum and Chryseobacterium balustinum. Group 2 contained 10 isolates which remained unidentified but were closely associated with Group 1. Group 3 with three isolates was identified as a Chryseobacterium meningosepticum group. Group 4 contained nine isolates which included Chryseobacterium indoltheticum and Chryseobacterium scophthalmum. Groups 5 and 7 with four and eight isolates respectively, remained unidentified while Group 6 containing five isolates, was identified as the Empedobacter group. It was found in this study that this technique was not able to differentiate between all the species of Chryseobacterium but that species could be arranged in order of relatedness. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.