Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography of Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter Species

Abstract

Low resolution pyrolysis gas chromatography was performed on five species of Pseudomonas and two species of Acinetobacter. Conventional species groups could be differentiated by canonical variates analysis, and visual examination suggested that subspeciation would have been possible with more data. Carbowax 20M has been used as the stationary phase for the majority of published work on pyrolysis gas chromatography of micro‐organisms. However, with this material baseline resolution was poor, analysis times were long and column deterioration was relatively rapid. Peak area reproducibility on a single column averaged 10%, but it proved impossible to achieve quantitatively similar pyrograms on a new column. These serious drawbacks of Carbowax 20M limit the usefulness of this stationary phase for pyrolysis gas chromatography of micro‐organisms.

Identification of staphylococci by pyrolysis gas-liquid chromatography

“…Many workers have commented on short column life and poor inter-column reproducibility (Seviour et al, 1974;Wickman, 1977;Brosseau and Carmichael, 1978;French et al, 1980). We found that cleaning and replacement of packing after each 100 analyses allowed a single column to be used for > 1200 analyses without detectable deterioration, confirming the findings of Stack et al (1977).…”

“…Other workers have found problems in inter-column and inter-apparatus reproducibility (Stack et al, 1977;French et al, 1980) and any advance here would aid the introduction of PGLC as a routine identification technique. PGLC requires sequential rather than batch analysis, which could also lead to problems in routine use.…”

“…Analysis times of 8 min (French, Phillips and Chinn, 1981) to 45 min (Oxborrow, Fields and Puleo, 1976) have been described and the technique has been applied to a wide range of organisms (Reiner and Ewing, 1968;Oxborrow et al, 1976;Wickman, 1977;Stack et al, 1977;French, Gutteridge and Phillips, 1980). However, several difficulties have been encountered, including the short life of the columns (Sekhon and Carmichael, 1973;Seviour, Chilvers and Crow, 1974;French et al, 1980) and lack of reproducibility between different sets of apparatus (Stack et al, 1977;French et al, 1980). The aim of this study was to develop a rapid method for the identification of common species of Staphylococcus by PGLC and to evaluate it in conditions appropriate to a routine diagnostic laboratory.…”

Taxonomic studies of Acinetobacter species based on outer membrane protein patterns.

“…been reported, such as biotyping (25), serotyping (7), bacteriocin typing (2), transformation (13), and pyrolysis gas chromatography (11).…”

Identification of viridans streptococci by pyrolysis-gas chromatography

“…The resulting pyrolysis products are swept directly on to a gaschromatographic column for analysis, producing characteristic chromatographic patterns called pyrograms. The method has been criticised for its poor reproducibility (Seviour et al, 1974;Wickman, 1977;Brosseau and Carmichael, 1978;French et al, 1980), but we have developed a new technique of Py-GC employing isothermal oven temperatures and solid stationary phases that is both practical and reproducible (French et al, 1981).…”