Preliminary quantification of immunological relationships among the transaldolases of the genus Bifidobacterium.

The immunological relatedness among the transaldolases (dihydroxyacetone transferase, E.C. 2.2.1.2) of twenty species of the genus Bifidobacterum has been tested by the microcomplement fixation method, using B. thermophilum (B. ruminale) RU326 (= ATCC 25866), B. cuniculi RA93 (= ATCC 27916) and B. 'minimum' (DNA homology group) F392 (= ATCC 27916) as references. Based on the serological relationships of the transaldolases, expressed either as indices of dissimilarity or as immunological distances, the twenty species of the genus Bifidobacterium were arranged into clusters. These clusters generally coincided with the immunological groups obtained previously by the immunodiffusion method (Sgorbati and Scardovi, 1979).