Topic summary

Diplococci

Extracted from the Wikipedia article Bacterial cellular morphologies.

Diplococci are pairs of cocci. Examples of gram-negative diplococci are Neisseria spp. and Moraxella catarrhalis. Examples of gram-positive diplococci are Streptococcus pneumoniae and Enterococcus spp. Presumably, diplococcus has been implicated in encephalitis lethargica. The genus Neisseria belongs to the family Neisseriaceae. This genus, Neisseria, is divided into more than ten different species, but most of them are gram negative and coccoid. The gram-negative, coccoid species include: Neisseria cinerea, N. gonorrhoeae, N. polysaccharea, N. lactamica, N. meningitidis, N. mucosa, N. oralis and N. subflava. The most common of these species are the pathogenic N. meningitidis and N. gonorrhoeae.