Relative incidence of Alteromonas putrefaciens and Pseudomonas putrefaciens in ground beef

Of 65 H(2)S-producing isolates from seven samples of ground beef, 64 were found to be Alteromonas putrefaciens. Isolates of Pseudomonas putrefaciens were not encountered. The mean guanine-plus-cytosine content of DNAs from 10 of the representative isolates, obtained from thermal denaturation determinations, was 46.5 +/- 1.0 mol%, which is consistent with the designation A. putrefaciens.