Reclassification of Enterococcus flavescens Pompei et al. 1992 as a later synonym of Enterococcus casseliflavus (ex Vaughan et al. 1979) Collins et al. 1984 and Enterococcus saccharominimus Vancanneyt et al. 2004 as a later synonym of Enterococcus italicus Fortina et al. 2004

Abstract

The taxonomic relatedness between the speciesEnterococcus casseliflavusandEnterococcus flavescensand betweenEnterococcus italicusandEnterococcus saccharominimuswas investigated. Literature data had already indicated the synonymy betweenE. casseliflavusandE. flavescens, but this observation had not been formally published. Additional evidence that the two taxa represent a single species was provided by comparison of the partial sequences for three housekeeping genes, phenylalanyl-tRNA synthase alpha subunit (pheS), RNA polymerase alpha subunit (rpoA) and the alpha subunit of ATP synthase (atpA). Additional genomic data derived from DNA–DNA hybridization demonstrated that the two species are synonymous. ForE. italicusandE. saccharominimus, two recently described taxa, a high 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of >99 % and analogous phenotypic features indicated a close taxonomic relatedness. The same multilocus sequence analysis scheme for the three housekeeping genes was also applied forE. italicusandE. saccharominimusand indicated possible conspecificity, an observation that was also confirmed by a high DNA–DNA hybridization value (⩾78 %). Data from the present study led to the proposal thatE. flavescensshould be reclassified as a later synonym ofE. casseliflavusand thatE. saccharominimusshould be reclassified as a later synonym ofE. italicus.