Transfer of Kingella indologenes (Snell and Lapage 1976) to the genus Suttonella gen. nov. as Suttonella indologenes comb. nov.; transfer of Bacteroides nodosus (Beveridge 1941) to the genus Dichelobacter gen. nov. as Dichelobacter nodosus comb. nov.; and assignment of the genera Cardiobacterium, Dichelobacter, and Suttonella to Cardiobacteriaceae fam. nov. in the gamma division of Proteobacteria on the basis of 16S rRNA sequence comparisons.

The 16S rRNA sequences of Kingella indologenes, Cardiobacterium hominis, and Bacteroides nodosus were determined by direct RNA sequencing, using a modified Sanger method. Sequence comparisons indicated that these three species represent a novel family in the gamma division of Proteobacteria. On the basis of these data, K. indologenes and B. nodosus cannot retain their current generic status as they are not closely related to other members of their assigned genera. Therefore, we propose transfer of K. indologenes to the new genus Suttonella as Suttonella indologenes and transfer of B. nodosus to the new genus Dichelobacter as Dichelobacter nodosus and assign the genera Cardiobacterium, Suttonella, and Dichelobacter to a new family, Cardiobacteriaceae, in the gamma division of Proteobacteria.