Oecophyllibacter saccharovorans gen. nov. sp. nov., a bacterial symbiont of the weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina

Abstract

AbstractIn this study, bacterial strains Ha5T, Ta1 and Jb2 were isolated from different colonies of weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina. They were distinguished as different strains based on matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time of flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry and distinctive random-amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprints. Cells of these bacterial strains were Gram-negative, rod-shaped, aerobic, non-motile, catalase-positive and oxidase-negative. They were able to grow at 15–37°C (optimum, 28–30°C) and in the presence of 0–1.5 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 0%). Their predominant cellular fatty acids were C18:1ω7c, C16:0, C19:0ω8c cyclo, C14:0 and C16:0 2-OH. Strains Ha5T, Ta1 and Jb2 shared highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity (94.56–94.63%) with Neokomagataea tanensis NBRC106556T but were phylogenetically closer to Bombella spp. and Saccharibacterfloricola DSM15669T. Both 16S rRNA gene sequence-based phylogenetic analysis and core gene-based phylogenomic analysis placed them in a distinct lineage in family Acetobacteraceae. These bacterial strains shared higher than species level thresholds in multiple overall genome-relatedness indices which indicated that they belonged to the same species. In addition, they did not belong to any of the current taxa of Acetobacteraceae as they had low pairwise average nucleotide identity (≤70.7%), in silico DNA-DNA hybridization (≤39.5%) and average amino acid identity (≤66.ü%) values with all the type members of the family. Based on these results, bacterial strains Ha5T, Ta1 and Jb2 represent a novel species of a novel genus in family Acetobacteraceae, for which we propose the name Oecophyllibacter saccharovorans gen. nov. sp. nov., and strain Ha5T as the type strain.