Abstract

The cellular fatty acids and quinones of streptomycetes isolated from volcanic soils were analysed. The strains contained fatty acids of 14 to 17 carbon chains, and 12-methyltetradecanoic acid and 14 methylpentadecanoic acid were dominant in most strains. The total profiles consisted of 74% branched fatty acid family, 16.8% linear family and 8.2% unsaturated family. The largest cluster of grey spore masses defined by numerical classification was separated from the remainders in the principal component analysis, but the other clusters were overlapped with one another. In the analysis of respiratory quinones, all of the strains contained either the menaquinone of 9 isoprene units with 6 hydrogenations of 8 hydrogenations as the major species. The distribution of menaquinones among the clusters could provide an important key in the chemotaxonomy of streptomycetes.

• Keywords: Fatty acids; streptobycetes; numerical classification; principal component analysis; menaquinone