Saccharibacteria

Saccharibacteria, formerly known as TM7, is a major bacterial lineage. It was discovered through 16S rRNA sequencing .

TM7x from the human oral cavity was cultivated and revealed that TM7x is an extremely small coccus (200-300 nm) and has a distinctive lifestyle not previously observed in human-associated microbes. It is an obligate epibiont of various hosts, including Actinomyces odontolyticus strain (XH001) yet also has a parasitic phase thereby killing its host. The full genome sequence revealed a highly reduced genome (705kB) and a complete lack of amino acid biosynthetic capacity. An axenic culture of TM7 from the oral cavity was reported in 2014 but no sequence or culture was made available.