Korean J Clin Microbiol.  2012 Sep;15(3):79-87. 10.5145/KJCM.2012.15.3.79.

Basic Concepts of Bacterial Taxonomy

• Kim YS
• Jang SJ

• KMID: 1434164
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.5145/KJCM.2012.15.3.79

Abstract

The three components of taxonomy are classification, nomenclature and identification. Traditionally, bacterial classification and identification were performed based on the morphology and the biochemical data of the bacteria. In newer theories, or so-called natural concepts, the relationships between bacteria are based on the overall similarities of both the phenotypic and genotypic characteristics. The polyphasic taxonomy, or current taxonomy, describes the integration of all of the available genotypic, phenotypic, and phylogenetic information into a consensus type of general-purpose classification. When routine identification methods that are based on the biochemical tests fail, alternative procedures such as complete 16s rRNA gene sequence analysis are required. Although the results of 16s rRNA gene sequence analysis have not been fully discriminatory to differentiate closely related species, they may guide the additional analyses that are required for species identification.

Keyword

Bacteria; Classification; Identification; rRNA genes; Taxonomy

MeSH Terms

Bacteria
Consensus
Genes, rRNA
Sequence Analysis

Figure

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  Fig. 1 Schematic diagram showing procedure of multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA). The concatenated sequences of seven house keeping genes (HKG) are used for phylogentic analysis of four species of bacteria to improve species descriptions in this figure.

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  Fig. 2 Schematic diagram showing DNA-DNA hybridization procedure. (A) The DNA-DNA hybridization step. The DNA of two species of bacteria are heated and mixed together. During incubation, the DNA strands were dissociated and reannealed forming three kinds of hybrid double-stranded DNAs, (B) the melting procedure to analyze the melting profile of the hybridized DNA. The double-stranded DNA is bound to a column and the mixture is heated in small steps.

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