Vitamin nutrition of the staphylococci with special reference to their biotin requirements.

The vitamin requirements of staphylococci have been studied by numerous investigators with considerable diversity of results. Much of this confusion undoubtedly results from the failure of most such studies to consider the physiological characteristics of the organisms investigated. The classical investigations of Knight (1937) showed that strains of Staphylococcus aureus required thiamin and nicotinic acid for growth in a synthetic medium containing 14 amino acids, glucose, and salts. Koser et al. (1938) obtained similar results with a white strain of Staphylococcus. Pyridoxine in the presence of both nicotinic acid and thiamin was reported by Vilter and Spies (1940) to stimulate the growth and acid production of several strains of Staphylococcus albus. Porter and Pelezar (1941) reported on two strains of S. aureus that required biotin. Sevag and Green (1944) noted that two strains of S. aureus required pantothenic acid in the absence of tryptophan. Moller et al. (1949a,b) reported a requirement for folic acid, pantothenic acid, and riboflavin by a number of strains of S. aureus. However, a careful physiological study of 3 such cultures obtained from Moller (Gretler and Evans, 1951) demonstrated that these were actually enterococci rather than staphylococci. The possibility of confusing enterococci and coagulase positive staphylococci when catalase activity is not determined has been reemphasized by Evans, Buettner, and Niven (1950). Numerous physiological studies of large numbers of staphylococci from various sources have