Fusobacteriota

Fusobacteriota is a phylum of obligately anaerobic, non-spore-forming, Gram-negative rod-shaped bacteria. First described in the late nineteenth century under a series of earlier names, the group proved difficult to identify in the laboratory because its members are asaccharolytic and give few positive results on routine biochemical tests. Molecular techniques have since resolved a number of distinct species within the phylum, including separate subspecies of Fusobacterium necrophorum and Fusobacterium nucleatum, and produced better methods for identifying them. Fusobacteriota are clinically significant, long recognized for causing tissue necrosis and septicaemia in a wide range of human infections, and more recently implicated in intra-amniotic infections, premature labor, and tropical ulcers.