Bacteriocine typing of Klebsiella spp.

One hundred and six strains of Klebsiella spp were examined for their ability to produce bacteriocine. Nine of these, together with one strain from the National Collection of Type Cultures, were selected and used to type Klebsiella strains from various sources. Strains were typed by testing their sensitivity to bacteriocines produced by the standard set of 10 strains. Eight hundred strains were tested and 77% of these were typable and could be divided into a relatively large number of groups, some of which occurred consistently more frequently than others.This simple method has been shown to have some value in epidemiological investigations.