more q on pseudomonas vectors

[Mr. I.S. Viney]

On Mon, 18 Dec 1995, Don Chen wrote:

> Hi:
> 
> I recently asked for information (in the methods newsgroup) about
> vectors which either work in pseudomonads alone or in them and E.coli.
>  
>------- In that vein, Fred Hyde <hydex004 at gold.tc.umn.edu> has pointed out
> that the MIDI method of characterizing bacteria based on fatty acid
> methyl esters.  Has anyone who has used this method any comments on
> its utility?
> Don
> 
> 

pUCP is great!  We use it for Ps. aeruginosa.
I did six months using FAMES to identify plant pathogens, we managed to 
improve the commercial computer library for this purpose.  With good 
standardisation of growth conditions (bacteria alter their fatty acids 
greatly with alterations in media and especially temperature) we had 
the system discriminating between pathovars easily, and could guess as to 
where in the world the some isolates came from!  This strength did come 
from having profiled many hundreds of isolates from the NCPPB (UK), but 
it is a very powerful technique and the commercial library is very good and 
improving all the time.  You get an answer 48 hrs after streaking the 
isolate out and identification at the species level should be easy.

Hope this was of some interest.

Ian Viney 
Imperial College