8 The Identification of Fatty Acids in Bacteria

Publication date: 2011 Source:Methods in Microbiology, Volume 38 Author(s): Milton S. da Costa , Luciana Albuquerque , M. Fernanda Nobre , Robin Wait The fatty acid composition is probably the most important chemotaxonomic parameter used for the differentiation of prokaryote taxa at the species level because it correlates very well with the accepted DNA:DNA hybridization-based species concept of many groups of bacteria. However, care must be taken to standardize the conditions of growth as well as those of the gas chromatography. If these standardized conditions are followed, valuable information may be acquired from the cellular fatty acids composition. This chapter describes methods that should be applied and the care that should be taken to obtain uniform values from fatty acid determination.

Source: Methods in Microbiology - October 12, 2014 Category: Microbiology Source Type: research