CLASSIFICATION OF MICROORGANISMS

 The science of classification, especially the classification

of living forms, is called taxonomy

The objective of taxonomy is

- to classify living organisms that is , to establish

the relationship between one group of organisms and another and to differentiate between them Systematics, or phylogeny, is the study of evolutionary history of organisms

 From the time of Aristotle: living organisms Plants or Animals 1735, Carolus Linnaeus : Formal system of classification

2 kingdom : Plantae and Animalia

1857, Carl von Ngeli, proposed that bacteria and

fungi were placed in the Plant Kingdom

1866, Ernst Haeckel proposed the Kingdom Protista to include bacteria, protozoa, algae, and fungi.
3

 Fungi were placed in their own kingdom in 1959

1937, Edouard Chatton, the term of Prokaryote was

introduced to distinguish cells having no nucleus from nucleated cells of plants and animals 1968, Robert G.E.Murray proposed the Kingdom Prokaryotae

1969, Robert H.Whittaker founded the Five Kingdom

System in which prokaryotes were placed in the Kingdom Prokaryotae (or Monera), and eukaryotes comprised the other four kingdom
4

The Three Domains

The Kingdom Prokaryotae had been based on microscopic observations New techniques in molecular biology revealed that there are actually two types of prokaryotic cells and one type of eukaryotic cell The discovery of three cell types was based on the observation that ribosome are not the same in all cell In 1978, Carl R.Woese proposed elevating the three cell types to a level above kingdom, called domain
5

The Three Domains

1.
2.

The Domain Eukarya : animals, plants, fungi and protists

The Domain Bacteria : includes all of the pathogenic

prokaryotes as well as many of the nonpathogenic

prokaryotes found in soil and water 3. The Domain Archaea : includes prokaryotes that do not have peptidoglycan in their cell walls

The Three Domains

The Taxonomy Hierarchy

Similar species are grouped into a genus Similar genera are grouped into a family Families into an order

Order
Classes Phyla

into a class
into a division or phylum into a kingdom

Kingdoms into a domain

8

The Taxonomy Hierarchy

DOMAIN Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species : BACTERIA : PROTEOBACTERIA : Gamma-proteobacteria : Enterobacteriales : Enterobacteriaceae : Escherichia : Escherichia coli

Scientific Nomenclature
Was established in 1735 by Carolus Linnaeus Every organism is assigned two names, or binomial binomial nomenclature These names are the genus name and specific epithet (species) The genus name is always capitalized and always a noun. The species name is lowercase and is usually an adjective Both names are printed underlined or italicized

Streptococcus pneumoniae
Scientific names are to be taken from Latin Suffixes for order and family are ales and aceae, respectively
10

Classification of Prokaryotes
Prokaryotes, from Greek words meaning prenucleus include both the bacteria and the archaea Bergeys Manual of Systematic Bacteriology is the standard reference on bacterial classification A group of bacteria derived from a single cell is called a strain Closely related strains constitute a bacterial species
11

Methods of Classifying and Identifying

Microorganisms
1. Bergeys Manual of Determinative Bacteriology is the standard

reference for laboratory identification of bacteria 2. Morphological characteristics differential staining techniques 3. The presence of various enzymes biochemical tests

4. Serological tests serotypes/serovars slide agglutination test,

ELISA, Western blotting 5. Phage typing

6. Fatty acid profiles

12

7. Flow cytometry measures physical & chemical charact. of cells

8. The percentage of GC base pairs in the nucleic acid of cells can be

used in the classification of organisms 9. The number and sizes of DNA fragments, or DNA fingerprints

10. The sequence of bases in rRNA

11. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) 12. Nucleic Acid Hybridization Southern blotting

13