Examination of fimbriation of some gram-negative rods with and without twitching and gliding motility

Abstract

Negatively stained preparations of 30 different strains of gram-negative rods representing 20 different taxa were examined in the electron microscope. Thirteen of the strains studied exhibited twitching and six of the strains exhibited motility. Additionally, non-twitching substrains of two of the twitching strains and a non-gliding substrain of one of the gliding strains were examined. A variety of cultural media, preparations for negative straining and negative strains were used. It was found that all strains with twitching motility possessed fimbriae, the diameter of which was approximately 50 A in all but one strain; the fimbriae of this strain had a diameter of approximately 40 A. The fimbriae were judged to be of polar origin in all cases where the origin could be determined with certainty. On none of the strains without twitching motility could fimbriae be demonstrated. Only one of the six strains with gliding motility possessed fimbriae.