[The taxonomy of obligate anaerobic bacteria]

Studies on the chemotaxonomy of obligate anaerobic bacteria have been made. The combination of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry with computer-assisted analysis, permitting the multicomponent analysis of all products of bacterial metabolism and bacterial cell components, has been shown to be a research method, quite suitable for such studies. The chromatographic profiles of the end products of metabolism in anaerobic cultures of different age have been found to differ not in the set and number of peaks indicating various metabolites, but only in the concentration of metabolites, increasing in the process of prolonged incubation. The authors believe that the national microbiological "library" of the chromatographic profiles of anaerobic organisms should be created and the album of typing chromatographic profiles should be published; besides, data on new profiles should regularly appear in magazines.