Report of the ICSB Taxonomic Subcommittee on Gram-Negative Anaerobic Rods: Proposal That the Saccharolytic and Asaccharolytic Strains at Present Classified in the Species Bacteroides melaninogenicus (Oliver and Wherry) Be Reclassified in Two Species as Bacteroides melaninogenicus and Bacteroides asaccharolyticus

The asaccharolytic and saccharolytic strains at present classified together in one species, Bacteroides melaninogenicus, have been shown to differ in a number of properties including their deoxyribonucleic acid base ratios. It is proposed that the asaccharolytic strains (guanine-plus-cytosine content, 50 to 54 mol%) should be assigned to a separate species, Bacteroides asaccharolyticus, whereas the saccharolytic strains (guanine-plus-cytosine content, 40 to 45 mol%) should still be classified in the two subspecies Bacteroides melaninogenicus subsp. melaninogenicus and Bacteroides melaninogenicus subsp. intermedius, although further study is required to complete the characterization of these two groups.