Lactobacillus bambusae sp. nov., isolated from traditional fermented ma bamboo shoots in Taiwan.

A Gram-stain-positive strain, BS-W1, was isolated from a traditional fermented ma bamboo shoots (Dendrocalamus latiflorus Munro) product of Taiwan. It was rod-shaped, non-motile, non-haemolytic, asporogenous, facultatively anaerobic, heterofermentative and did not exhibit catalase or oxidase activities. Comparative analysis of 16S rRNA, pheS, rpoA and gyrB gene sequences demonstrated that the novel strain BS-W1 was a member of the genus Lactobacillus. On the basis of 16S RNA gene sequence similarity, the type strains of Lactobacillus oryzae (94.4 % similarity), Lactobacillus acidifarinae (93.8 %), Lactobacillus namurensis (93.7 %) and Lactobacillus zymae (93.7 %) were the closest neighbours to strain BS-W1. The pheS, rpoA and gyrB gene sequence similarities of strain BS-W1 to closely related these species were less than 80.2 %. DNA-DNA reassociation values with these type strains were 21.0-33.8 %. The DNA G+C content was 46.6 mol%. The average nucleotide identity values between BS-W1 and the closest relatives were lower than 70 %. Phenotypic and genotypic features demonstrated that the strain represents a novel species of the genus Lactobacillus, for which the name Lactobacillus bambusae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is BS-W1 (=BCRC 80970=NBRC 112377).