ABSTRACT
Classi©cation. Tannerella forsythia was originally isolated in the 1970s from dental plaque collected from subjects diagnosed with progressing advanced periodontitis at the Forsyth Institute and was initially described as “fusiform Bacteroides.”1 This oral bacterium was primarily placed into the Bacteroides genus and classiŠed as Bacteroides forsythus,2 and the species name referred to the Forsyth family, who founded the Forsyth Institute. A phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene led to a reclassiŠcation of this bacterium, and it could no longer remain in the Bacterioides genus. B. forsythus also could not be placed in the Porphyromonas or Prevotella genera, which resulted in reclassiŠcation of this bacterium to the genus Tannerella, within the phylum Bacteroidetes. The genus name was chosen in recognition of Anne Tanner who described this microorganism in 19862 and this bacterium was then reclassiŠed to T. forsythensis, and to ensure grammatical consistency, it was Šnally named T. forsythia.3
