Corynebacterium atrinae sp. nov., isolated from the gastrointestinal tract of a pen shell, Atrina pectinata.

A novel Gram-stain-positive, non-motile, facultatively anaerobic and rod-shaped bacterium, strain PSPT56(T), was isolated from the gastrointestinal tract of a pen shell (Atrina pectinata). Optimal growth of strain PSPT56(T) was ascertained to occur at 30 °C, pH 8.0 and in the presence of 1-2 % (w/v) NaCl. The strain was catalase-positive and oxidase-negative. The major cellular fatty acids were C18 : 1ω9c, C16 : 0, C17 : 1ω8c and C17 : 0. Tuberculostearic acid was not present. The major cell-wall sugars were ribose, galactose, glucose and arabinose. Peptidoglycan amino acids were meso-diaminopimelic acid, alanine and glutamic acid. The predominant isoprenoid quinone was MK-8(H2). Strain PSPT56(T) contained phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, an unidentified phospholipid, two unidentified lipids and two unidentified amino-lipids. Mycolic acids were detected as constitutive components of the cell wall. A phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity showed that strain PSPT56(T) was most closely related to Corynebacterium testudinoris M935/96/4(T) and Corynebacterium felinum M714/95/5(T) with 98.69 % and 97.01 % similarity, respectively. DNA-DNA hybridization experiments indicated less than 29.9 % relatedness to the phylogenetically closest species. The G+C content of genomic DNA was 67.6 mol%. The phenotypic, phylogenetic and genotypic analyses indicated that strain PSPT56(T) represents a novel species within the genus Corynebacterium, for which the name Corynebacterium atrinae is proposed. The type strain is PSPT56(T) ( = KACC 17525(T) = JCM 19266(T)).