The Proteobacteria
The largest phylum in the Bacteria is the Proteobacteria that include most of the species generally encountered in the microbiology laboratory. The Proteobacteria are further subdivided into alpha (a), beta (b), gamma (g), delta (d) and epsilon (e) classes. A few well-known examples from each subdivision are described in Table 1. Key members of the phylum are discussed further below.
Table 1: Some members of the proteobacteria