Members of Proteeae were vertically inoculated into different brands of sulfide-indole-motility (SIM) medium for evaluating the capability of IPA production. A total of 328 clinical strains of tribe Proteeae was used as tested organisms, including 186 Proteus mirabilis strains, 62 Morganella morganii strains, 31 Proteus vulgaris strains, 27 Providencia rettgeri strains, 14 Providencia stuartii and 8 Providencia alcalifaciens strains. Seven different brands of SIM medium used in this study are Kyokuto and Eiken from Japan; Gibco, Difco, Scott and BBL from U.S.A.; as well as Oxoid from England. The results indicate that SIM medium of kyokuto is the most suitable medium for Proteus spp. and Providencia spp. to produce IPA (positive rates are 95.4% and 93.0%, respectively) but not for Morganella morganii (16.1%). Eiken, Gibco and BBL SIM medium are only good for Providencia spp. to produce IPA (positive rates are 95.5%, 85.1% and 87.8%, respectively). Take account the tribe Proteeae the best SIM medium to detect IPA production was from Kyokuto (80%) and the worst was Oxoid (0.3%). Since SIM medium can constantly detect the production of H2S, the relationship between H2S and IPA was analyzed. We found that there is no obvious interaction between these two characters. Production of phenylalanine deaminase (PD) is one of the important characters for tribe Proteeae. We compared PD and IPA positive rates of each members and found that the ability to produce PD and IPA is almost identical for each member in tribe Proteeae except Morganella morganii.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)