%0 Journal Article %A Macfie, Halliday J. H. %A Gutteridge, Colin S. %A Norris, John R. %T Use of Canonical Variates Analysis in Differentiation of Bacteria by Pyrolysis Gas-Liquid Chromatography %D 1978 %J Microbiology, %V 104 %N 1 %P 67-74 %@ 1465-2080 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/00221287-104-1-67 %I Microbiology Society, %X Low-resolution pyrolysis gas-liquid chromatography (p.g.l.c.) can differentiate genera of aerobic food spoilage bacteria. Multivariate statistical techniques were applied but neither principal components nor furthest neighbour cluster analysis produced a consistent differentiation although both confirmed the reproducibility of p.g.l.c. When the distance between genera was redefined in terms of Mahalanobis D 2 - a generalized concept taking into account scatter around the mean - good differentiation was observed and could be displayed graphically by plotting the genus group means relative to the first two canonical variate axes. The coefficients of the canonical variates provide a strategy for discriminating between the genus groups. Some practical problems in the identification of unknowns using this technique are discussed. %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/micro/10.1099/00221287-104-1-67