[Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology (second edition) Volume 5 and the study of Actinomycetes systematic in China].

Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology (hereinafter referred to as "Bergey's Manual") is the collection of academic views accepted by taxonomists in many countries. It has scientificity, unitarity and practicality. "Bergey's Manual" (special issue of Actinomycetes) divided into two parts (part A and part B) was published in May, 2012. Under the guidance and the organization of Michael Goodfellow et al., the great work has been completed successfully in May 2012. "Bergey's Manual" made a great modification on the systematic of Actinomycetes and formally set up the phylum of Actinobacteria, which encompasses 6 classes, 23 orders (include one order incertae sides), 53 families, 222 genera and about 3000 species. The taxonomic catalogue is Bacteria, phylum of Actinobacteria, under the phylum there are class, order, family, genera and species. "Bergey's Manual" collected a great deal of new taxa, which were published in IJSEM (International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology) by Chinese scientists. We need to indicate that due to its too rigorous, conservative writing purpose and long publication periods, "Bergey's Manual" fails to collect new research results using the molecular approaches of multilocus sequence analysis "MLSA", gene chip technology and genome technologies, which however will profoundly change the taxonomy of prokaryotes in the near future.