sp. nov., isolated from the respiratory tract of diseased Chacoan peccaries ().

Novel catalase-negative, Gram-stain-positive, beta-haemolytic, coccus-shaped organisms were isolated from Chacoan peccaries that died from respiratory disease. The initial API 20 Strep profiles suggested with acceptable identification scores, but the 16S rRNA gene similarity (1548 bp) to available sequences of streptococci was below 98 %. Next taxa of the genus , displaying highest similarities to the strains from this study, were NZ1587 (97.5 %), ATCC 29178 (97.5 %), HKU30 (97.4 %), DSM 6631 (97.1 %), CAIM 1838 (97.1 %), DSM 18513 (97.0 %), DSM 15616 (96.6 %), 707-05 (96.6 %), JCM 5709 (96.5 %) and NCTC 10999 (96.4 %). All other species had sequence similarities of below 96.4 %. A gene as well as whole genome-based core genome phylogeny of three representative strains and 145 available genomes confirmed the unique taxonomic position. Interstrain average nucleotide identity (ANI) and amino acid identity (AAI) values were high (ANI >96 %; AAI 100%), but for other streptococci clearly below the proposed species boundary of 95-96 % (ANI <75 %; AAI <83 %). Results were confirmed by genome-to-genome distance calculations. Pairwise digital DNA-DNA hybridization estimates were high (>90 %) between the novel strains, but well below the species boundary of 70 % for closely related type strains (23.5-19.7 %). Phenotypic properties as obtained from extended biochemical profiles and MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry supported the outstanding rank. Based on the presented molecular and physiological data of the six strains, we propose a novel taxon for which we suggest the name sp. nov. with the type strain 99-1/2017 (=DSM 110457=CCUG 74072) and five reference strains.