A Co-operative Numerical Analysis of Rapidly Growing Mycobacteria

SUMMARY: A co-operative numerical taxonomic analysis of rapidly growing mycobacteria of Runyon's group IV is reported. There was no limitation on the number, nature, or method of performance of the test characters contributed by each of the 12 participants. Initially 415 test characters were coded for analysis; deletion of irrelevant and repetitious data resulted in a final 195 characters used to generate the matching matrix. All nine major clusters defined in the study were of named species; however, three of these were noted to contain two or more species and the reduction of some of these to synonymy with prior epithets is discussed. Recognized clusters were: Mycobacterium smegmatis, M. phlei, M. vaccae (including M. para-fortuitum), M. diernhoferi, M. flavescens, the rhodochrous taxon, M. thamnopheos, M. fortuitum, M. chelonei. Results of the pooled information are compared with those of the individual participants. Immunological results generally correlated well with numerical analyses.