A new typing method for Staphylococcus epidermidis was developed. Four biotinylated lectins--wheat germ agglutinin (WGA), soy bean agglutinin (SBA), lentil agglutinin (LCA) and Concanavalin A (ConA)--were added to immobilised whole cells of coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) in microtitration plates. The amount of bound lectin was measured by peroxidase-conjugated avidin followed by a peroxidase reaction. The method was compared to antibiotic-resistance analysis, phage typing, plasmid DNA profiles and slime production. A total of 113 isolates of CNS from 21 patients was investigated and 71 strains of CNS, including 64 strains of S. epidermidis, were detected if all typing methods were taken into consideration. If only one typing method was used the highest discriminatory power among the S. epidermidis isolates was obtained with the lectin-binding assay which allowed 49 different strains to be detected. If the lectin-binding assay was combined with plasmid-profile analysis, all 64 different strains could be identified. The typability of lectin-binding assay was 96.9% among the S. epidermidis isolates and 25 different lectin-binding patterns were established among the 64 strains. The highest number of strains belonging to one lectin-binding pattern was 13 (20.3%). The assay was reproducible, easy to perform, relatively inexpensive and therefore applicable to large scale typing of S. epidermidis.