Deoxyribonucleic Acid Relatedness between Bacillus anthracis, Bacillus cereus and Bacillus thuringiensis

TLDR: Since DNA homology was introduced as a new taxonomic criterion, Somerville and Jones made some DNA-DNA competition experiments and suggested close interrelatendness of the three, though their data do not appear very clearcut.

Abstract: proved as distinct taxa (1, 2), as they are different in pathogenicity and in some other properties. However it is also widely accepted that they are quite similar. In fact some pathogens may produce non-pathogenic offsprings that are hardly distinguishable from normal B. cereus. Some B. cereus strains share some flagella antigens with B. thuringiensis (6; Ohba and Aizawa, unpublished data), and the formation of intracellular protein crystals, which has been considered as another characteristic of the latter, is now known in Bacillus subtilis (4) too. In their comprehensive studies Smith et al (9, 10) and Gordon et al (3) emphasized their similarities rather than difference and took a view that they are from academic viewpoint the different varieties of B. cereus. Since DNA homology was introduced as a new taxonomic criterion, Somerville and Jones (11) made some DNA-DNA competition experiments and suggested close interrelatendness of the three, though their data do not appear very clearcut. DNADNA hybridisation studies by Azuma (personal communication) and by Seki et al