Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) analyses were conducted as follows. Lyophilized cultures maintained by the ARS Culture Collection were rehydrated in 3 ml trypticase soy broth (Difco) and incubated for 12 h at 30 uC with shaking at 200 r.p.m. Small (100 ml) aliquots of liquid culture were then spread onto trypticase soy agar (Difco) plates and incubated for 24 h at 30 uC. Following incubation, bacterial colonies (approx. 3 mg wet weight) were transferred to 2 ml screw cap vials and prepared for fatty acid extraction. Fatty acid extraction and analysis were performed according to the Instant FAME sample preparation method (MIDI, Inc.). Gas chromatography was per-formed on a Agilent 6890N analyzer using calibration standards. The Sherlock Microbial Identification (MIDI, Inc.) software was used to assign GC peaks to individual fatty acid structures.