Abstract
In order to get more simplified and rapid method for the identification of microorganisms, especially for Gram-negative rods in various sea foods, the method proposed by Corlett et al. was repeated in the present experiment using 39 reference cultures of several genera, and 754 cultures of the isolates from fish which had been identified according to the method by Kawabata et al.
Results obtained may be summarized as follows. In addition, some partial modifications on the replica plating method are being proposed:
Good coincidence was observed in the test organisms belonging to Pseudomonas group II, Flavobacterium and coliform, of both reference cultures and the isolates.
Several reference and isolated cultures belonging to Pseudomonas group I species, however, were identified as Pseudomonas group II according to the original method by Corlett et al. This was found to be resulted from the use of an improper basal medium (TPN) on which the test organisms failed to produce green fluorescent pigments. The difficulty or defect in the original method could be solved by using the medium B of King et al. instead of TPN.
We also encountered with difficulty in identifying genus Achromobacter; among the test organisms consisting of 7 reference cultures and 38 isolates of Achromobacter species, only 8 species could be identified as they are, and the remainders were unidentified according to the key proposed by Corlett et al. These results strongly suggest the need for further studies so as to solve the defect in identifying genus Achromobacter.
