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The Genera Desulfitobacterium and Desulfosporosinus: Taxonomy

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The Prokaryotes

Introduction

Members of the genera Desulfitobacterium and Desulfosporosinus represent a clade of strictly anaerobic, rod-shaped, and sporeforming bacteria within the phylum Firmicutes, previously also known as the “low G+C Gram-positive bacteria.”

The taxonomic and environmental significance of microorganisms belonging to this group escaped the attention of microbiologists for a long time and was only recently revealed, although the first representative species was already isolated in 1959. This species, however, was wrongly described as Desulfovibrio orientis (Adams and Postgate, 1959). Later the taxonomic affiliation of this bacterium to the Gram-positive sulfate reducers was recognized and it was reclassified as Desulfotomaculum orientis (Campbell and Postgate, 1965). Under this name it was included in the Approved Lists of Bacterial Names (Skerman et al., 1980). In the course of a phylogenetic analysis of the genus Desulfotomaculum, the separate taxonomic position of this species...

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Authors
  1. Stefan Spring
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  2. Frank Rosenzweig
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, University of Minnesota, Box 196, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0312, USA

    Martin Dworkin Professor Dr. (Editor-in-Chief) (Editor-in-Chief)

  2. Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University Medical School, 299 Campus Drive, Fairchild, D039, Stanford, CA, 94305-5124, USA

    Stanley Falkow

  3. Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, 69978, Israel

    Eugene Rosenberg

  4. Department of Microbiology, Technical University Munich, 80290, Munich, Germany

    Karl-Heinz Schleifer

  5. DSMZ- German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH, Mascheroder Weg 1b, 38124, Braunschweig, Germany

    Erko Stackebrandt

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Spring, S., Rosenzweig, F. (2006). The Genera Desulfitobacterium and Desulfosporosinus: Taxonomy. In: Dworkin, M., Falkow, S., Rosenberg, E., Schleifer, KH., Stackebrandt, E. (eds) The Prokaryotes. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30744-3_24

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