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The Genus Spirillum

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The Prokaryotes

Introduction

The genus Spirillum contains only a single species—Spirillum volutans (Krieg, 1984b). Prior to 1973, however, the genus Spirillum included other aerobic/microaerophilic, chemoheterotrophic spirilla as indicated in the 8th edition of [{http://www.cme.msu.edu/bergeys/}Bergey’s Manual of Determinative Bacteriology] (Krieg, 1974). Hylemon et al. (1973b) divided the genus into the three genera Spirillum, Aquaspirillum, and Oceanospirillum on the basis of their DNA base composition and certain physiological characteristics. The genus Spirillum was reserved for large, microaerophilic, freshwater spirilla having a DNA base composition of 38 mol% G+C (thermal denaturation method) or 36 mol% G+C (buoyant density method).

Within the Proteobacteria, S. volutans is a member of the beta division, based on oligonucleotide cataloguing of 16S rRNA (Woese et al., 1982; Woese et al., 1984; Woese, 1987). Its nearest neighbor is Thiobacillus thioparus, according to the Bergey’s Manual...

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Authors
  1. Noel R. Krieg
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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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Krieg, N.R. (2006). The Genus Spirillum . In: Dworkin, M., Falkow, S., Rosenberg, E., Schleifer, KH., Stackebrandt, E. (eds) The Prokaryotes. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30745-1_29

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