Moorella (bacterium)

Moorella is a genus of bacteria belonging to the phylum Firmicutes.[3]

Moorella
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Bacteria
Phylum:	Firmicutes
Class:	Clostridia
Order:	Thermoanaerobacterales
Family:	Thermoanaerobacteraceae
Genus:	Moorella Collins et al. 1994[1]
Type species
Moorella thermoacetica[1] (Fontaine et al. 1942) Collins et al. 1994[1]
Species
M. glycerini[1] M. humiferrea[1] M. mulderi[1] M. perchloratireducens[2] M. stamsii[1] M. thermoacetica[1] M. thermoautotrophica[1]

These bacteria are thermophilic, anaerobic and endospore-forming and many species of this genus have been isolated from hot springs. Some of these species were formerly included within the genus Clostridium, but after a taxonomic rearrangement of the class Clostridia, a phylogenetically distinct genus was identified, which was named Moorella in honor of the American microbiologist W.E.C. Moore.[3]

Phylogeny

The current phylogeny of these bacteria has been inferred from a computational analysis of 16S ribosomal RNA genes of described species belonging to the Moorella Group (a larger group of bacteria within the family Thermoanaerobacteraceae that also includes other species actually not belonging to genus Moorella). The following diagram (cladogram) displaying the species relatedness has been extracted from a wide phylogenetic tree generated from 16S rRNA genes (LTP release 111 of The All-Species Living Tree Project).[2][4]

Moorella         Moorella glycerini Slobodkin et al. 1997     Moorella mulderi Balk et al. 2005       Moorella stamsii Alves et al. 2013       Moorella humiferrea Nepomnyashchaya et al. 2012         Moorella thermoautotrophica (Wiegel et al. 1982) Collins et al. 1994     Moorella thermoacetica (Fontaine et al. 1942) Collins et al. 1994 (Type species of the genus Moorella)     ?Moorella perchloratireducens Balk et al. 2008 (see Notes §1)         Calderihabitans maritimus (see Notes §2)         Thermanaeromonas burensis (see Notes §3)     Thermanaeromonas toyohensis (see Notes §3)

Notes:

Moorella thermoautotrophica was formerly named Clostridium thermoautotrophicum, while Clostridium thermoaceticum was the former name of Moorella thermoacetica.

§1 Moorella perchloratireducens was not included in the original tree.

§2 This cladogram also includes other most-related species that do not belong to the genus Moorella:

§2 Calderihabitans maritimus is within the Moorella Group, but belongs to the genus Calderihabitans.

§3 Thermanaeromonas burensis and Thermanaeromonas toyohensis do not belong to the Moorella Group but to genus Thermanaeromonas within the same family Thermoanaerobacteraceae.

A third genus belongs to Moorella Group, namely Ammonifex, but the phylogenetic tree did not include species of this genus among the most-related microorganisms.

References

1. Parte, A.C. "Moorella". LPSN.
2. "Moorella". National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) taxonomy database. Retrieved 2019-02-09.
3. Collins, M. D.; Lawson, P. A.; Willems, A.; Cordoba, J. J.; Fernandez-Garayzabal, J.; Garcia, P.; Cai, J.; Hippe, H.; Farrow, J. A. E. (1994). "The Phylogeny of the Genus Clostridium: Proposal of Five New Genera and Eleven New Species Combinations". International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology. 44 (4): 812–826. doi:10.1099/00207713-44-4-812. ISSN 0020-7713. PMID 7981107.
4. All-Species Living Tree Project."16S rRNA-based LTP release 111 (full tree)" (PDF). Silva Comprehensive Ribosomal RNA Database. Retrieved 2013-03-20.