TABLE 1.
Physiological characteristics of Pediococcus strains included in this study
| Strain | Presence (+) or absence (−) of characteristic
|
No. of isolates | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Production of acid from:
|
Arginine hydrolysis | Salt tolerancea | |||||
| Arabinose | Maltose | Sucrose | Trehalose | ||||
| Reference strains | |||||||
| P. acidilactici | + | − | − | + | + | − | 1 |
| P. pentosaceus | + | + | − | + | + | + | 1 |
| P. dextrinicus | − | + | + | − | − | + | 1 |
| P. damnosus | − | + | + | + | − | − | 1 |
| P. parvulus | − | − | − | − | − | + | 1 |
| Clinical isolates | |||||||
| P. acidilactici | + | − | − | + | + | + | 38 |
| P. acidilactici | + | − | − | − | + | + | 13 |
| P. acidilactici | + | − | + | + | + | + | 2b |
| P. acidilactici | + | + | − | + | + | + | 1c |
| P. pentosaceus | + | + | − | + | + | + | 15 |
| P. pentosaceus | + | + | + | + | + | + | 3b |
a
Growth in broth containing 6.5% of NaCl.
b
Strains not clearly identified because of positive reactions in sucrose broth.
c
This strain showed typical physiological traits characteristic of P. pentosaceus. However, the protein profile, the results of the chromogenic tests, and the size range of DNA fragments were typical of P. acidilactici. DNA-DNA hybridization experiments (data not shown) confirmed its identification as P. acidilactici.