Cohnella cellulosilytica sp. nov., isolated from buffalo faeces

Abstract

A cellulose-degrading bacterium, strain FCN3-3 T, was isolated from buffalo faeces collected in Nakhonnayok province, Thailand. The strain was characterized based on its phenotypic and genotypic characteristics. Strain FCN3-3 T was a Gram-positive, aerobic, spore-forming, rodshaped bacterium. It contained meso-diaminopimelic acid in cell-wall peptidoglycan. The major menaquinone was MK-7. Anteiso-C 15:0 (52.5 %), iso-C 16:0 (18.9 %) and C 16:0 (9.1 %) were the predominant cellular fatty acids, and diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and lysyl-phosphatidylglycerol were the major phospholipids. The DNA G+C content was 58.0 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis using 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain FCN3-3 T was affiliated to the genus Cohnella and was closely related to Cohnella phaseoli GSPC1 T, Cohnella luojiensis HY-22R T and Cohnella hongkongensis HKU3T, with 97.2, 96.8 and 96.3% sequence similarity, respectively. Strain FCN3-3 T could be clearly distinguished from all known species of the genus Cohnella by its physiological and biochemical characteristics as well as its phylogenetic position and level of DNA-DNA relatedness. Therefore, the strain represents a novel species of the genus Cohnella, for which the name Cohnella cellulosilytica sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is FCN3-3 T (=KCTC 13645 T=TISTR 1996 T=PCU 323 T).