衣原体是一大类严格真核细胞内寄生、具有独特发育周期、与人类生活关系密切的细菌。近年来衣原体遗传学特别是比较基因组学研究，和新发衣原体如朱鹭衣原体、鸟衣原体、家禽衣原体等改变了旧的衣原体分类体系。最大的变化是嗜衣原体属被取消，该属原来的6个种被归到了衣原体属中，与新发衣原体一起使衣原体属扩展到了12个种。本文简要综述了衣原体分类现状与衣原体分类鉴定依据，包括传统的生物学特征、理化性质、分子遗传学方法及最近发展起来的全基因组分析。目前分子遗传学方法是衣原体分类鉴定的标准方法，包括16S rRNA、ompA与其它衣原体特有基因的序列分析等。“,”ABSTRACT:Chlamydiae are obligate intracellular bacteria with a unique biphasic developmental cycle ,and have close rela‐tionships with human .Emerging Chlamydia species such as Chlamydia ibidis ,Chlamydia avium and Chlamydia gallinacea changed the chlamydial taxonomy .The biggest change is the abandon of genus Chlamydophilaand its previous six species were recombined into genus Chlamydia ,which in together with the emerging species ,expands genus Chlamydia to 12 species .This paper briefly reviewed the latest taxonomy of Chlamydiae and their identification methods ,which include the classical biological characteristics and physico‐chemical properties ,modern molecular genetics ,and the newly developed whole genome analysis . Presently ,molecular genetics methods ,including sequence analysis of 16S rRNA ,ompA and other Chlamydia‐specific genes , are commonly used for chlamydial identification .