title: Spirochaetes and their twisted ways.
abstract: Biological systematists have had a long tradition of encountering organisms that are not quite what they seem to be. Among the microbes, horizontal gene transfer and evolutionary pressures result in organisms that have distinguished themselves from their closest relatives. The recent analyses of several Spirochetes reveal members that are not spiral shaped, and ones that appear to have extensively acquired genetic material from phylogenetically distant, but environmentally proximate, organisms.
authors.affiliation: Veterinary Science and Microbiology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
authors.forename: Gayatri
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vedantam
authors.forename: V K
authors.initials: VK
authors.lastname: Viswanathan
mesh_terms: D001419:Bacteria / Q000235:genetics; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D022761:Gene Transfer, Horizontal; D013144:Spirochaetales / Q000166:cytology* / Q000235:genetics*