Chlamydiae

The Chlamydiae are a bacterial phylum and class whose members are remarkably diverse, including pathogens of humans and animals, symbionts of ubiquitous protozoa, and marine sediment forms not yet well understood. All of the Chlamydiae that humans have known about for many decades are obligate intracellular bacteria; in 2020 many additional Chlamydiae were discovered in ocean-floor environments, and it is not yet known whether they all have hosts. Historically it was believed that all Chlamydiae had a peptidoglycan-free cell wall, but studies in the 2010s demonstrated a detectable presence of peptidoglycan, as well as other important proteins. Among the Chlamydiae, all of the ones long known to science grow only by infecting eukaryotic host cells. They are as small as or smaller than many viruses. They are ovoid in shape and stain Gram-negative.

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