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The Genera Bergeyella and Weeksella

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The Prokaryotes

Introduction

Bergeyella and Weeksella have a history of being a separate group of organisms in the flavobacteria-grouping. They were originally treated as one genus (Weeksella) with two species, namely, W. virosa (Holmes et al., 1986a) and W. zoohelcum (Holmes et al., 1986b). Since 1994, however, they were separated into two genera in the Flavobacteriaceae family (Vandamme et al., 1994) as discussed in the introductory chapter about this family (see the chapter An Introduction to the Family Flavobacteriaceae in this Volume). Strains of both of these genera, especially Bergeyella with its frequent association with animal bite wounds, are found in clinical specimens.

The aim of this chapter is to provide more detail on the taxonomy, phylogeny, habitat, isolation and preservation, identification, pathogenicity and applications of these two genera.

Taxonomy and Phylogeny

Formerly known as Centers for Disease Con-trol (CDC) groups IIf (Weeksella) and IIj (Bergeyella), these two genera were...

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Authors
  1. Celia J. Hugo
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  2. Brita Bruun
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  3. Piet J. Jooste
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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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Hugo, C.J., Bruun, B., Jooste, P.J. (2006). The Genera Bergeyella and Weeksella . In: Dworkin, M., Falkow, S., Rosenberg, E., Schleifer, KH., Stackebrandt, E. (eds) The Prokaryotes. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30747-8_18

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