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Thermoplasmatales

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The Prokaryotes

Introduction

The order Thermoplasmatales (Reysenbach, 2001) is represented by facultatively anaerobic, thermoacidophilic, autotrophic or heterotrophic organisms that are unique among the Archaea both by their morphology and by their phylogenetic position. So far, the order harbors three families, each represented by one genus: the Thermoplasmaceae (genus Thermoplasma; Darland et al., 1970), the Picrophilaceae (genus Picrophilus; Schleper et al., 1995), and the recently described Ferroplasmaceae (genus Ferroplasma; Golyshina et al., 2000), formerly named Ferromonas metallovorans.

Thermoplasma spp. are devoid of a cell wall or envelope. For that reason, the genus Thermoplasma, which was for a long time (until 1995) the only member of the group, was first considered to be associated with the (bacterial) mycoplasmas (Darland et al., 1970; Masover and Hayflick, 1981). However, results of 16S rRNA sequence analyses revealed that Thermoplasma was a member of the archaeal domain (Woese and...

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Authors
  1. Harald Huber
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  2. Karl O. Stetter
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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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Huber, H., Stetter, K.O. (2006). Thermoplasmatales. In: Dworkin, M., Falkow, S., Rosenberg, E., Schleifer, KH., Stackebrandt, E. (eds) The Prokaryotes. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30743-5_7

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