Eighty-eight Pseudomonas aenrginosa isolates, most of them from the Collection of Bacterial Strains of the lnstitut Pasteur, Paris, were analysed for their pyoverdine-mediated iron incorporation system by different methods, including pyoverdine isoelectrofocusing analysis, pyoverdine-mediated growth stimulation, immunoblot detection of (ferri)pyoverdine outer-membrane receptor and pyoverdine-facilitated iron uptake. The same grouping of the strains was reached by each of these methods, resulting in the classification of the P. aenrginosa isolates, even those which were devoid of pyoverdine production, into three different siderophore types. Forty-two percent of the strains were identified with the --strain P. aeruginosa ATCC 15692 (group I), 42% were identical with the second type-strain P. aenrginosa ATCC 27853 (group II) and 16% reacted identically with the clinical isolate P. aenrginosa Pa6, whose pyoverdine was recognized in this study to be identical in structure to the pyoverdine produced by a natural isolate, P. aeruginosa strain R. No new pyoverdine species was detected among these strains.