In article <7832138299306 at microbiol.org>, sysop at microbiol.org wrote:
> IT>I am looking into methods for identifying (or at least differentiating)
> IT>bacterial isolates from soil and sea-water samples. One such method
> IT>recommended to me is the "Biolog" System.
>> IT>Does anyone have any experience (good or bad) with this system?
>> IT>Are there any other similar systems which I should consider?
>> IT>Eventually, I'll be needing to isolate and differentiate approx. 3000
> IT>different strains.
>> IT>Thanks
>> IT>Tom Lewis
I used Biolog fairly extensively over the past two years two aid me in
identifying and classifying some soil and sediment-derived
naphthalene-degrading bacteria. For the most part, I was happy with the
results. For environmental isolates, they (and MIDI) have by far the
largest databases. If your interest is primarily in identification of soil
and sediment isolates, then, these are the major players on the market.
Biolog is fairly inexpensive to set up, as opposed to the MIDI system.
I found that Biolog was quite reliable in identifying the classical
pseudomonads ('reliable', as judged by its agreement with previous
identifications by classical methods as well as 16S rRNA sequences).
However, it was by no means infallible for all the taxa I examined, having
clearly misidentified two of the about 50 that I tested. Also, many
environmental isolates are oligotrophic and therefore don't grow well on
TSA or BugM medium. However, diluting them to 5% of the original strength
proved to be successful for me.
If I can help you further, please e-mail me.
James Herrick, Ph.D.
Environmental Microbiology
University of California
Los Alamos National Laboratory
jherrick at lanl.gov
