The Use of the A.P.I. Lactobacillus System for the Characterization of Pediococci

A commercially produced system for the identification of Lactobacillus , by which the reactions of concentrated cell suspensions towards 50 substrates may be determined, is useful for the characterization of strains of Pediococcus . Suitable conditions for inoculum preparation vary for slow and fast growing strains; the influence of cell concentration on the results is described. The reactions are classified in terms of their value for species characterization and the results are shown to agree well with those in other studies where classical procedures have been used.