Characterization of bacterial genospecies by computer-assisted statistical analysis of enzyme electrophoretic data.

A computer-assisted statistical treatment of the electrophoretic data obtained from the analysis of two dehydrogenases and 27 kinds of esterases produced by strains belonging to the taxonomically complex genus Acinetobacter is described. The 12 genospecies were clearly separated from each other by correspondence analysis. For each genospecies the distances of the strains from their barycenter were computed and typical isolates suitable for use as reference strains were determined. This approach is suitable for the systematic study of other procaryotic or eucaryotic organisms.