Abstract
Abstract
Ki.ri.ti.ma.ti.el'li.a. N.L. fem. dim. n.
Kiritimatiella
, type genus of the type order of the class; N.L. neut. pl. n. suff. –
ia,
ending to denote a class; N.L. neut. pl. n.
Kiritimatiellia
, the class of the order
Kiritimatiellales
.
Kiritimatiellota / Kiritimatiellia
emend
.
The effectively published synonym
Kiritimatiellae
(sic) Spring et al. 2016 was corrected to
Kiritimatiellia
by Spring et al. (2022) in Göker (2022). At the time of writing, the class
Kiritimatiellia
encompasses all cultivated representatives of the phylum
Kiritimatiellota
. Members of this taxon are in general free‐living, nonmotile, non‐spore‐forming, coccoid bacteria adapted to anoxic niches found in aquatic environments or the intestines of animals. Further features common to all strains include cell division by binary fission, a cell wall of the Gram‐negative type that contains peptidoglycan, no intracellular membranes, and an anaerobic metabolism based on the fermentation of carbohydrates. Transparent exopolymers are produced by pure cultures of the known strains. A specialization in the degradation of complex polysaccharides can be assumed for most strains, since the corresponding genomes contain a large number of genes encoding glycoside hydrolases and sulfatases. Cellular fatty acid patterns of axenic cultures are dominated by straight‐chain (C
18:0
) and iso‐branched fatty acids (iso‐C
12:0
, iso‐C
14:0
). The major polar lipids are identified as phosphatidylglycerol and diphosphatidylglycerol (cardiolipin). The genome sizes among described representatives of this phylum range from 2.9 to 8.6 Mb.
DNA G + C content (mol%)
: 53–63 (genome analyses,
n
= 4).
Type order
:
Kiritimatiellales
Spring et al. 2016, VL174.