The phylum chloroflexi, the family chloroflexaceae, and the related phototrophic families oscillochloridaceae and roseiflexaceae

Abstract

The phylum Chloroflexi is one of large phyla containing bacteria with various metabolic features. This phylum includes six classes, Chloroflexi, Anaerolineae, Caldilineae, Ktedonobacteria, Dehalococcoidetdia, and Thermomicrobia. Filamentous morphology is the typical feature of the majority of classes: organisms belonged to the classes Chloroflexi, Anaerolineae, Caldilineae, and Ktedonobacteria are all multicellular filamentous bacteria. Of these six classes, only the class Chloroflexi consists of phototrophic bacteria. This phototrophic group, called filamentous anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria, was distributed into three families (Chloroflexaceae, Oscillochloridaceae, and Roseiflexaceae) in the class and shares the following features in common: multicellular filamentous morphology, gliding motility, and anoxygenic photosynthetic activity. In this chapter, this phototrophic group belonged to the type class of this phylum (Chloroflexi) will be mainly explained in detail: in addition to the family Chloroflexaceae, the related families composed by phototrophic bacteria, i.e., Oscillochloridaceae and Roseiflexaceae, will be also mentioned.