| Cross Index | Flexibacter |
| SuperSet | Prokaryote, Eubacteria Gliding Bacteria |
| Compare | Cytophagales, Beggiatoales Single
Celled, rod shaped Capnocytophaga,
Chitinophaga
pinensis , Cytophaga, Flexibacter,
Flexithrix dorotheae,
Lysobacter,
Microscilla,
Sporocytophaga
myxococcoides, Thermomena, |
| Contrast | Archaea |
| Subset |
| Morphology | Flexibacter |
| CELLULAR |
| Staining | Gram -negative |
| Morphology | Rod-shaped cells of variable length, typically 10-50 um long, slender, 0.2-0.6 um wide, flexible, and with tapering or rounded ends |
| Motility | Gliding, but nonmotile stages may occur. In some species |
| Specialized structures | there is a (cyclic) change in cell morphology. In young liquid cultures or on plates at the edge of spreading colonies or swarms, the cells are thread-like, 20-50 um and more in length,and very agile, actively twisting and bending. As these cells have no cross-walls or, at best, very few cross-walls, they will be called thread cells to distinguish them from multicellular filaments. In aging cultures or behind the swarm edge, the cells become shorter and shorter until only short, stout, nonmotile and phase-dark rods are left, clearly fatter than the thread cells, sometimes almost coccoid |
| Division |
| COLONIAL |
| Solid surface | Cell mass usually yellow to orange, sometimes very pale or even colourless. The pigments are cell- bound and often carotenoids and/or of the flexirubin type. In the latter case, the colonies show an immediate and reversible colour change to red-brown or purple when covered with alkali solution (eg. 20% KOH; reversed by 10% HCl). |
| Liquid |
| Growth Parameters | Flexibacter |
| PHYSIOLOGICAL |
| Tropism | Chemoorganotrophs |
| Oxygen | Strictly aerobic or facultatively anaerobic |
| pH | |
| Temperature | |
| Requirements | Peptones and amino acid mixtures serve as nitrogen sources. Various sugars are utilized. Some grow on simple defined media, eg. with glucose and NH4+. Cellulose and agar are not attacked, but chitin and starch are often degraded. |
| Products | |
| Enzymes | |
| Unique features |
| ENVIRONMENTAL |
| Habitat | Organisms widely distributed and common in soil and freshwater |
| Lifestyle | |
| Pathogenicity |
| Distribution |
| Genome | Flexibacter |
| G+C Mol % | 37-47 |
| Reference | Flexibacter |
| First citation | Soriano,S. 1945. Un nuevo orden de bacterias: Flexibacteriales. Cienc. Invest. B. Aires 1:92-93 |
| Emended | H. Reichenbach 1989 Flexibacter: in Bergey's Manual of systematic Bacteriology Vol 3 ( James T. Stanely Editor, Marvin P. Bryant, Norbert Pfennig, associate Editor, John G. Holt Editor-in-chief p 2061 ISBN-0-683-07906-5 |
| The Prokaryotes | |
| Bergey's Systematatic | p 2061 H. Reichenbach |
| Bergey's Determinative | p 487 |
| References |