Soil bacteria: numerical analysis of electrophoretic protein patterns developed in acrylamide gels

Abstract

The protein band patterns of 47 soil bacteria, all thought to be of the arthrobacter kind, were analyzed by a simple numerical method in which each observed E_t value was treated as a unit character. The results were not satisfactory. In a second analysis only major bands were taken into account and small variations in the E_t values of the 24 chosen bands were disregarded. This subjective editing was required to satisfy a minimum criterion that replicates be recognized as such by the analysis. It was concluded that without a means of estimating the variation in E_t value for each band and of identifying homologous bands, electrophoretic band patterns of crude extracts of soluble proteins are likely to be of limited rather than general use in microbial taxonomy.