Role of intraspecific phenotypic diversity in the ecology of escherichia coli and staphylococcus aureus
Bukhrin, O.V.; Gritsenko, V.A.; Deriabin, D.G.
Vestnik Rossiiskoi Akademii Meditsinskikh Nauk 1997(3): 34-40
1997
ISSN/ISBN: 0869-6047 PMID: 9181854 Document Number: 477508
Investigating a complex of biological characteristics, including the inactivating ability of some antiinfectious resistance agents (lysozyme, complement, immunoglobulins, the bactericide component of interferon) in 229 and 257 E. coli and S. aureus strains, respectively, isolated from various sources has revealed the phenotypical polymorphism in the populations of these microorganisms, whose degree and specific features may be characterized by the indices of biological diversity and by the spectra of dominant biological profiles. Interpopulational variability in the bacteria was found to be determined by the specific features of their colonized ecotopes and to reflect the level of their adaptation to their inhabitance. There is a view of the organizational structure of the bacterial species as a whole complex of discrete populations of microorganisms, which include representatives of phenotypically different clone lines that occupy the optimum and some marginal econiches whose relation is supported by migration processes.