Enterococcus camelliae sp. nov., isolated from fermented tea leaves in Thailand

Abstract

A Gram-positive and catalase-negative coccus that formed chains, strain FP15-1T, isolated from fermented tea leaves (‘miang’), was studied systematically. The strain was facultatively anaerobic and producedl-lactic acid from glucose. Demethylmenaquinone (DMK-7) was the major menaquinone. Straight-chain unsaturated fatty acids C16 : 1and C18 : 1were the dominant components. The DNA G+C content was 37.8 mol%. On the basis of 16S rRNA and RNA polymeraseαsubunit (rpoA) gene sequence analysis, strain FP15-1Twas closely related toEnterococcus italicusKCTC 5373T, with 99.2 and 93.8 % similarity, respectively. The strain could be clearly distinguished fromE. italicusATCC 5373Tby low DNA–DNA relatedness (≤33.8 %) and phenotypic characteristics. Therefore, this strain represent a novel species of the genusEnterococcus, for which the nameEnterococcus camelliaesp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is FP15-1T(=KCTC 13133T=NBRC 101868T=NRIC 0105T=TISTR 932T=PCU 277T).