Microorganisms belonging to the Chlamydiaceae family are Gram-negative, obligatory intracellular bacteria involved in diseases affecting both animals and humans.
The Chlamaydiaceae family traditionally contained a single genus, Chlamydia (Bergey’s Manual of Systematic Bacteriology vol.1, 1984) but in 1999 a new genus, Chlamydophila, was added based on 16S rRNA and 23S rRNA sequence’s similarity (Everett et al. in 1999). Furthermore, other five new species were proposed by Everett. However, the use of the new genus name was debated within the scientific community and for this reason the edition of the Bergey’s Manual (vol.4, 2011) considers the genus Chlamydia the only genus and the five additional species are classified within this genus. Since the taxonomy of the family Chlamydiaceae is currently under consideration, and species with the name Chlamydophila felis, Chlamydophila pecorum and Chlamydophila abortus have been widely and validly published, the subdivision into two genera Chlamydia and Chlamydophila has been retained in this collection until 2013. From 2014, only the genus Chlamydia is used.
Currently, the genus Chlamydia encompass 10 recognised species: C. abortus, C. avium, C. felis, C. gallinacea, C. pecorum, C. pneumonia, C. psittaci, C. poikilotherma, C. suis, C. trachomatis. Other species have been proposed in several publications but not yet accepted as such.
Quality controls
All strains enrolled in our collection are submitted to different molecular and microbiology tests in order to evaluate their purity and identity:
Viability
It is performed on cell cultures before freezing and after thawing in order to evaluate the cryopreservation efficiency. The growth of the strains is evaluated by qPCR and/or immunofluorescence test (IFT).
Purity and Identity
All isolates were tested by different molecular biology techniques, such as: specie-specific real-time PCR that allow to confirm the purity and the identity of each isolate.
Quality management system
IZSLER laboratories, that supply biological resources to IBVR, use testing methods performed according to UNI EN ISO/IEC 17025 quality system.
Updated to July 2022
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