RESUMO
Fifteen well-defined strains of Aeromonas of thirteen species were analyzed by SDS protein electrophoretic analysis (SD-PAGE) and random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis (RAPD). The comparison between the patterns obtained by both methods allowed differentiating all the strains. Clusters formed by the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic averages applied to protein data correlates with the genetic and biochemical information about the species. The results show that protein fingerprinting has the potential to differentiate Aeromonas species, but the low qualitative variation indicates that this technique is not efficient of the characterization of strains within a species. Conversely, RAPD fingerprinting allows the identification of strains but the high variability limits its potential as an aiding method for species identification.