Virgibacillus phasianinus sp. nov., a halophilic bacterium isolated from faeces of a Swinhoe's pheasant, Lophura swinhoii.

A rod-shaped, Gram-stain-positive, motile and aerobic bacterium, designated LM2416, was isolated from faeces of Lophuras winhoii living in Seoul Grand Park, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain LM2416 belonged to the genus Virgibacillus, sharing high 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities to Virgibacillus necropolis LMG 19488 (99.0 %), Virgibacillus carmonensis LMG 20964 (98.4 %), Virgibacillus arcticus Hal 1 (98.3 %) and Virgibacillus flavescens S1-20 (97.9 %). The isolate grew at 10-30 °C, pH 6-7 and 0-20 % (w/v) NaCl. Optimal growth was observed at 30 °C, pH 6-7 and 10 % (w/v) NaCl. The major fatty acid was anteiso-C15 : 0. Polar lipids were composed of phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, three unknown phospholipids and two unknown aminophospholipids. The main menaquinone was MK-7. Strain LM2416 had alanine, lysine, glutamic acid, glycine and aspartic acid as cell-wall amino acids and ribose as a cell-wall sugar. The whole genome sequences of strain LM2416 and V. necropolis KCTC 3820 were sequenced by PacBio RS II sequencing. The genome sequence-based G+C content of strain LM2416 was 39.5 mol%. The orthologous average nucleotide identity value, showing genetic relatedness between strain LM2416 and V. necropolis KCTC 3820, was 78.3 %. Based on the phylogenetic, biochemical, chemotaxonomic and genotypic data presented in this study, strain LM2416 is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Virgibacillus, for which the name Virgibacillus phasianinus is proposed. The type strain is LM2416 (=KCTC 33927=JCM 32144).