Name and describe six distinct classes of phylum Proteobacteri...

Question

Name and describe six distinct classes of phylum Proteobacteria.

Accepted Answer

Hi, everybody. And welcome back. Our next question says which of the following classes of phylum prote bacteria is not correctly matched with its description. A gamma prote bacteria, a broad range of bacteria with diverse metabolic capabilities and ecological rules. B Delta prote bacteria. They are a diverse group of bacteria that occupy various habitats including marine sediments. See, epsilon prote bacteria, they are often found in environments with high temperatures or low oxygen concentrations. Then the beta prote atera, they are a relatively newly discovered class, primarily known for their role in iron oxidation. I don't know about you, but I found this question quite tricky um because the classes of prote bacteria there, it's a very large and very diverse group. So it's kind of hard to get a handle on what characteristics classify each different class here. And in fact, they were divided into these six classes mainly on the basis of differences in their RRN A sequences. So the genetic information was used to divide them based on their, you know, relatedness as shown in their DNA but or RNA I should say, but there's not obvious um differences or things that divide them that a taxonomist would see without this DNA information. So what I, how I approached this question was I looked for what are the more specific pieces of information in here that could be used to rule something out, you know, for example, in choice. A it just says it's a broad range with diverse capabilities and roles. Well, that doesn't really help me, you kind of couldn't rule that out as a match unless for some reason, gamma prote only had like one variety. So when I look at all these different descriptions here, I feel like that my most specific information is in choice D we know they have a role in iron oxidation. That's not a very common characteristic of bacteria. So that's a very specific piece of information. We could link to one class and then we also see that they're newly discovered. So that might be something we could use as well. And indeed, when we look at our classes of prote bacteria, the only one that has a variety involved in iron oxi oxidation is not beta prote bacteria, but zeta prote bacteria. So we recall these six classes are named after the Greek letter, first six letters of the Greek alphabet. So it makes sense that a newly discovered class would have the highest letter that might help you. And indeed, it does have one variety that's involved in oxidizing iron as an energy source. So we've right away, got gotten our answer by focusing on that specific characteristic and seeing that that does not match with the class we were given just to be thorough and go through these other ones. Let's see how we would think through them choice. A gamma prote bacteria being a broad range of bacteria with these diverse metabolisms, diverse roles in uh the environment and kind of the feature that you would think of if you were trying to memorize these classes is that the gamma variety is the largest and most diverse group. So I'll put gamma. So that fits, you know, that's a good match that if they're the most diverse and largest they would, that's how you would describe them. It would be too hard to come up with specific descriptions of this group. So you can see where this one would not be an incorrect match. Now we have Delta Prote aac toia diverse group. There's again that troubling phrase diverse group, just meaning they do lots of different stuff um that occupy various habitats including marine sediments. So there's a kind of specific piece of information and indeed, some Delta prote bacteria are important parts of sediments of polluted lakes and sewage treatment. Um you know, pools of water where they make themselves known by the fact they produce hydrogen sulfide as they break down organic compounds. So a very distinctive smell coming from them. So you can see where that would be considered a match and wouldn't be our answer. I found choice c maybe the hardest one to rule out at first because when you think of epsilon prote ofac toia in microbiology, we're often focusing on uh microbes that cause disease. And so the most famous members of this epsilon prote bacteria class are Campylobacter, which is a top cause of gastroenteritis and helicobacter which causes ulcers. So those are kind of the ones that stick out to us the most. And our description here is are found in environments with high temperatures or low oxygen concentration. Well, the digestive tract is low on oxygen, but you might be sort of puzzled by the high temperatures, but there is a variety of epsilon prote bacteria that dwells in hydrothermal vents. So that will definitely tick the box of high temperatures. So again, I I found that a little confusing just because when I look at what, what I remember about epsilon prote bacteria, I'm kind of stuck on these ones from the intestinal tract, but there's like all these, there's a wide variety in this group. So choice C also uh doesn't contradict it's also a match. So we cross that out. So again, the class of Pym prote ofac toia that's not correctly matched with this description is choice D beta prote atera, they are relatively newly discovered class, primarily known for their role in iron oxidation that should be zeta prote. See you in the next video.

Name and describe six distinct classes of phylum Proteobacteria.

Key Concepts

Phylum Proteobacteria

Classes of Proteobacteria

Characteristics of Each Class

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