Bacillus farraginis sp. nov., Bacillus fortis sp. nov. and Bacillus fordii sp. nov., isolated at dairy farms.

Forty-eight bacterial strains were isolated at dairy farms from raw milk, the milking apparatus, green fodder or feed concentrate after a heat treatment of 30 min at 100 degrees C. In this way, spore-forming bacteria with a very high intrinsic heat resistance were selected for. The aerobic spore-forming isolates were subjected to a polyphasic taxonomical study, including repetitive element sequence-based PCR typing, whole-cell protein profiling, 16S rDNA sequence analysis, DNA-DNA hybridizations, DNA base composition, fatty acid analysis, and morphological and biochemical characteristics. A comparison of the REP- and (GTG)5-PCR and whole-cell protein SDS-PAGE profiles resulted in three clusters of similar strains. Analysis of the 16S rDNA sequences and DNA-DNA relatedness data showed that these clusters represented three novel species. The highest 16S rDNA similarity to a recognized species found for the three groups was around 94% with Bacillus lentus and Bacillus sporothermodurans. Further phenotypic characterization supported the proposal of three novel species in the genus Bacillus, Bacillus farraginis, Bacillus fortis and Bacillus fordii. The respective type strains are R-6540T (=LMG 22081T=DSM 16013T), R-6514T (=LMG 22079T=DSM 16012T) and R-7190T (=LMG 22080T=DSM 16014T); their G+C DNA base contents are 43.7, 44.3 and 41.9 mol%, respectively. Although in variable amounts, a predominance of the branched fatty acids iso-C(15 : 0) and anteiso-C(15 : 0) was observed in all three novel species.