Fatty acid and polar lipid composition in the classification of Cellulomonas, Oerskovia and related taxa

TLDR: Two-dimensional thin-layer chromatography showed that almost identical and very characteristic polar lipid patterns were given by all the organisms under study: the only major components were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosph atidylinositol and two phospho-glycolipids chromatographing similarly to, but distinguishable from, the mono- and diacyl phosphatidolinositols characteristic of Nocardia and other actinomycetes.

Abstract: Strains representing the taxa Cellulomonas, Oerskovia, Brevibacterium fermentans, Corynebacterium manihot and Nocardia cellulans were degraded by acid methanolysis and the non-hydroxylated fatty acid esters released examined by thin-layer and gas chromatography. The major fatty acid in all strains was 12-methyltetradecanoic acid (anteiso C15) which occurred together with other anteiso acids, iso and straight-chain acids. The fatty acid profiles of the cellulomonads were distinguished by the presence of 13-carbon acids and significantly higher proportions of straight-chain acids than found in the other test strains whose profiles were closely similar to one another. Two-dimensional thin-layer chromatography showed that almost identical and very characteristic polar lipid patterns were given by all the organisms under study: the only major components were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol and two phospho-glycolipids chromatographing similarly to, but distinguishable from, the mono- and diacyl phosphatidylinositol dimannosides characteristic of Nocardia and other actinomycetes. The accumulated lipid data support the reclassification of B. fermentans, Cor. manihot and N. cellulans in the genus Oerskovia.