The antigenicity of purified flagellin prepared from the single polar flagellum of Vibrio parahaemolyticus was found to be common to that of all strains tested, i.e., V . alginolyticus, V . cholerae, V . anguillarum, V . piscium, V . ichthyodermis, Beneckea natriegens, B . campbellii, B . nereida, B . pelagia, and B . neptuna. On the other hand, the antigenicity of purified flagellin prepared from the lateral flagella of V . parahaemolyticus was common to that of V . alginolyticus but not to that of B . campbellii or B. neptuna. Some physicochemical properties of flagellin from the single polar flagellum of V . parahaemolyticus were found to be similar to those of flagellins from other strains, such as those of V. anguillarum and B . neptuna.Vibrio parahaemolyticus possesses lateral flagella in addition to a polar monotrichous flagella in addition to a single polar flagellum under certain culture conditions (1,3,4, 16-18>. (In previous papers from this laboratory [8, 11-131, lateral flagella were described as peritrichous. However, to distinguish them from the flagella of true peritrichous cells, such as those found in Enterobmteriaceae, we use the term lateral flagella in this paper.) Previously, we reported an antigenic difference between the polar and lateral flagella of V . parahaemolyticus (8, 12, 13). In addition to the antigenic difference, several other different properties of these two flagella were reported. Lateral flagella were produced only on agar plates (3, 17, 18) and were easily removed from the cells mechanically (17, 18), whereas the single polar flagellum was produced either in liquid medium or on agar plates (3, 17, 18) and could only be removed from the cells by vigorous agitation (7). The single polar flagellum has a sheath-like structure, whereas the lateral flagella do not (1,7,17,18). Moreover, lateral flagella are of the curly type, whereas the single polar flagellum is a normal type (17,181. This paper reports studies on the distribution of these two kinds of flagellar antigens in various species of the genus Vibrio and related genera.
MATERIALS AND METHODSStrains and growth media. The Vibrio and Beneckea strains used are listed in Table 1. (The genus Beneckea is not recognized in Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology (8th ed.); it is described as a genus of uncertain taxonomic position. In this paper, we adopted the proposal of Baumann e t al. 131 for the species of the genus Beneckea.) Modified MOF (MMOF) medium contains the following constituents (grams per liter): Casitone (Difco), 1; yeast extract (Difco), 4.5; tris(hydroxymethy1)aminomethm e , 0.5; boric acid, 0.011; ammonium sulfate, 0.5; disodium phosphate, 0.004; ammonium nitrate, 0.0008; sodium chloride, 9.7; magnesium chloride, 4.4; sodium sulfate, 1.6; potassium chloride, 0.275; sodium bicarbonate, 0.08; potassium bromide, 0.04; strontium chloride, 0.017; sodium silicate, 0.002; and sodium fluoride, 0.0012 MMOF agar contains 20 g of agar (Difco) per liter in addition to the above-mentioned components. The mediu...