Ask A Scientist© Molecular Biology Archive

name         Mylene B.
status       student
age          20s

Question -   I would like to know what exactly is an enterobacteria and
Is there a list of all enterobacteria that exists ?
If not, is Corynebacterium diphteria, Borrelia burgdorferi,
Treponema pallidium,Rickettsie prowasecki and Listeria monocytogenes
all enterobacterias?

Enterobacteria is short for a family of bacteria known
under the full name of Enterobacteriaceae. Many of the
members of this family live in the intestines of
mammals. None of the bacteria you listed are
enterobacteria. Some well-known examples are:
Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Yersinia,  Klebsiella,
Citrobacter, Enterobacter, Shigella. Several of these
cause enteric diseases, others are native flora of our
gut.
The best way to look up families, genus and species of
bacteria is the taxonomy database of the National
Library of Medicine at NIH, see
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/taxonomyhome.html/

Dr. Trudy Wassenaar,
Curator of the Virtual Museum of Bacteria
www.bacteriamuseum.org
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