Tenebrionibacter intestinalis gen. nov., sp. nov., a member of a novel genus of the family Enterobacteriaceae, isolated from the gut of the plastic-eating mealworm Tenebrio molitor L.

Abstract

A Gram-negative, white-pigmented, motile and rod-shaped strain, BIT-L3T, was isolated from the gut of plastic-eating mealworm Tenebrio molitor L. Its taxonomic position was determined by using a polyphasic approach. A preliminary analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence (1445 bp) revealed that this strain was closely related to the members within the family Enterobacteriaceae . Phylogenetic trees based on the concatenated partial sequences of seven housekeeping genes (atpD, gyrB, infB, rpoB, pyrG, fusA, leuS) and genome sequences further showed that strain BIT-L3T constituted a separate lineage within the family Enterobacteriaceae. In silico DNA–DNA hybridization values and average nucleotide identity values between strain BIT-L3T and its closest related species within the family Enterobacteriaceae were less than 21.8 and 76.7 %, respectively. The major fatty acids (>5 %) of strain BIT-L3T were C16 : 0, C14 : 0, C17 : 0 cyclo, summed feature 8 (comprising C18 : 1 ω7c and/or C18 : 1 ω6c), summed feature 3 (comprising C16 : 1 ω7c and/or C16 : 1 ω6c and/or iso-C15 : 0 2-OH) and summed feature 2 (comprising iso-C16 : 1 I/C14 : 0 3-OH and/or C12 : 0 aldehyde and/or an unknown fatty acid of equivalent chain length 10.9525). Its genomic DNA G+C content was 53.7 mol%. Based on the results of phylogenetic, physiological and biochemical analyses, strain BIT-L3T is considered to represent a novel species of a novel genus within the family Enterobacteriaceae , for which the name Tenebrionibacter intestinalis gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is BIT-L3T (=CCTCC AB 2020371T=LMG 32222T=TBRC 14825T).