The incidence of exfoliative toxin-producing strains of Staphylococcus aureus was studied. Samples from hospitalized patients of all ages and samples from infants less than 6 weeks old were screened; out of 2,632 coagulase-positive S. aureus strains tested, 6.2% synthesized exfoliative toxin. The clinical features could be assessed in 86 patients harboring exfoliative toxin-producing staphylococci. Skin lesions (pustules, blisters, and bullous impetigo) could be observed only when the exfoliative toxin-positive strains were isolated from the skin. Phage nongroup II strains seemed less skin pathogenic than phage group II strains. Outbreaks and sporadic cases were observed.

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Seventy-four Flavobacterium strains were characterized by gas-liquid chromatographic analysis of volatile fatty acids produced in the culture medium. Principal components analysis permitted the graphic representation of the relative positions of the different strains, and aggregation according to the variance enabled a hierarchical classification to be established. The study revealed three subgroups each for F. meningosepticurn and F. odoratum. Our F. breve, Flavobacterium sp. group IIb and F. multivorum strains appeared to be homogeneous. These results tallied with those of previous studies on DNA base composition and reassociation, electrophoretic protein profiles and cellular fatty acid composition.

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Carbon substrates used as the sole source of carbon and energy were tested for the classification and identification of species of Flavobacterium: Flavobacterium meningosepticum, F. breve, F. odoratum, F. multivorum, F. thalpophilum, and Flavobacterium sp. group IIb. Hierarchical classification and stepwise discriminant analysis revealed three F. meningosepticum, two F. breve, two F. odoratum, and two Flavobacterium sp. group llb subgroups. Glucose, histidine, asparagine, tryptophan, maltose, citric acid, and glycine were selected as the most useful substrates to differentiate between the groups and subgroups. The various species of the genus Flavobacterium have been separated into distinct groups on the basis of DNA (3, 10), although few phenotypic features differentiate them absolutely (8). Our study was intended to determine the use of various carbon substrates as the sole source of carbon and energy by Flavobacterium meningosepticum, F. breve, Flavobacterium sp. group IIb, F. odoratum, F. multivorum, and F. thalpophilum. The advantages of such methods for the taxonomy and identification of members of the family Enterobacteriaceae and some members of the Vibrionaceae were confirmed by Véron (15) and Véron and Le Minor (16, 17), who found that the use profiles enabled the classification and, after restricting the number of substrates used, identification of the species. MATERIALS AND METHODS Bacterial strains. The following strains were tested: 13 F. breve (A40838,