gen. nov., sp. nov., an anaerobic thermophilic bacterium utilizing methoxylated benzoates.

A novel anaerobic, thermophilic bacterium (strain A05 MB) was isolated from Daginsky thermal springs (Sakhalin, Russia) on 2-methoxybenzoate as a substrate. Cells of the strain were motile long rods, 3.0-5.0 µm in length and 0.5-0.6 µm in diameter. The temperature range for growth was 47-68 °C, with an optimum at 60 °C. The pH range for growth was 4.5-8.0, with an optimum at pH 5.5-6.0. Strain A05 MB did not require NaCl for growth. The strain utilized methoxylated aromatic compounds (2-methoxybenzoate and 3,4-dimethoxybenzoate), a number of carbohydrates (glucose, fructose, mannose, trehalose, xylose, sucrose, galactose, ribose, maltose, raffinose, lactose, cellobiose and dextrin) and proteinaceous substrates (yeast extract, beef extract, peptone and tryptone). The end products of glucose fermentation were acetate, ethanol and CO. The DNA G+C content of strain A05 MB was 40.2 mol% (whole-genome analysis). 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain A05MB belongs to the order (phylum ). The closest relative of strain A05 MB was (94.3 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity). Based on the phenotypic, genotypic and phylogenetic characteristics of the isolate, strain A05 MB is considered to represent a novel species of a new genus, for which the name gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of is A05 MB (=KCTC 15839=VKM B-3388).