Actinomyces haliotis sp. nov., a bacterium isolated from the gut of an abalone, Haliotis discus hannai

Abstract

A novel, Gram-staining-positive, facultatively anaerobic, non-motile and coccus-shaped bacterium, strain WL80T, was isolated from the gut of an abalone, Haliotis discus hannai, collected from the northern coast of Jeju in Korea. Optimal growth occurred at 30 °C, pH 7–8 and with 1 % (w/v) NaCl. Phylogenetic analyses based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that strain WL80T fell within the cluster of the genus Actinomyces , with highest sequence similarity to the type strains of Actinomyces radicidentis (98.8 % similarity) and Actinomyces urogenitalis (97.0 % similarity). The major cellular fatty acids were C18 : 1ω9c and C16 : 0. Menaquinone-10 (H4) was the major respiratory quinone. The genomic DNA G+C content of the isolate was 70.4 mol%. DNA–DNA hybridization values with closely related strains indicated less than 7.6 % genomic relatedness. The results of physiological, biochemical, chemotaxonomic and genotypic analyses indicated that strain WL80T represents a novel species of the genus Actinomyces , for which the name Actinomyces haliotis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is WL80T ( = KACC 17211T = JCM 18848T).