Esterase electrophoresis compared with biotyping for epidemiological typing of Acinetobacter baumannii strains

Forty-nine Acinetobacter baumannii strains belonging to three biotypes and isolated from four hospitals were differentiated by electrophoretic typing of their esterases. Six main kinds of esterases were distinguished by their spectra of hydrolytic activity toward seven synthetic substrates. The electrophoretic variations of these enzymes were used to define ten zymotypes among the three biotypes. Esterase electrophoresis appeared to be more sensitive than biotyping, and could represent an additional marker for epidemiological analysis.     

The effect of isozyme selection on metric characters in an interspecific backcross of tomato — basis of an early screening procedure

Summary The extent of correlation was estimated between isozyme genotypes and the four widely segregating characters — leaf segment W/L ratio, stigma exsertion, fruit weight, and seed weight — in the first backcross of F₁ Lycopersicon esculentum x Solanum pennellii to the former parent. The inbred parents differ in their alleles at the 12 tested isozymic loci, which are known to mark a minimum of eight of the twelve tomato chromosomes. Based on the isozyme data, a mean heterozygosity value, ¯H, was calculated which estimates the proportion of pennillii alleles in each individual. Correlations between mean heterozygosity and observed levels of each quantitative trait were highly significant and positive or negative as expected from the relative parental values. Plants with the lowest mean heterozygosity — i.e., closest to the esculentum zymotype also had mean values closest to those of this parent amongst the whole backcross population for each of the quantitative traits.Bivariate and multiple regression analysis was used to evaluate the ability of isozymes vs diagnostic morphological characters to estimate the portion of recurrent parent genes carried in each backcross individual. The results suggest that isozyme data gives better estimates than single diagnostic morphological characters and approach the level obtained by combinations of three morphological traits. Since electrophoretic determinations are made on small seedlings, selection at that stage can effect great savings of space and effort by greatly deminishing the size of the population needed at maturity. As such, isozyme selection would precede morphological selection but not replace it, thus the predictive value of these biochemical markers as well as diagnostic morphological characters could be obtained.     

Conservation of components of the Escherichia coli export machinery in prokaryotes

Esterase electrophoretic typing was used to classify clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. One hundred and twenty-seven P. aeruginosa strains belonging to 16 serotypes (including 16 non-typeable strains) and isolated from diverse human infections in three hospitals, and the type strain ATCC 10 145, were tested. Four main kinds of esterase and 4 additional esterases were distinguished by their spectra of hydrolytic activity toward synthetic substrates and by their sensitivity or resistance to di-isopropyl fluorophosphate. The electrophoretic variations of these enzymes were used to define 42 zymotypes. Electrophoretic typing of esterase appeared to be more sensitive than serotyping and the results of the two methods did not correlate. When the two typing methods were used in parallel, 78 different combinations of serotype and zymotype were obtained.     

Characterization of highly virulent Escherichia coli strains by ribosomal DNA restriction fragment length polymorphism

Patterns of ribosomal DNA polymorphism were examined to compare carboxylesterase B type B1 strains and B2 strains of Escherichia coli isolated from extra-intestinal infections. DNA from 14 type B2 strains showing the presence of alpha-haemolysin and mannose-resistant haemagglutinin and lethality to mice and 14 type B1 strains lacking these characteristics, was digested with HindIII, EcoRI, BamHI or BglII restriction enzymes and analysed by Southern blotting. The obtained ribotypes clearly differentiated the B2 strains from the B1 strains. These results indicate that genotypes of the highly virulent B2 strains are different from that of the less virulent B1 strains.