Pyrolysis Gas Chromatography of Pseudomonas and Acinetobacter Species

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.