Cohnella herbarum sp. nov., isolated from wild grass fermentation broth

A novel strictly aerobic, Gram- stain-positive, rod-shaped, motile, endospore-forming, white-coloured bacterium, designated strain MFER-1(T), was isolated from a fermented liquor of wild grasses sampled in the Republic of Korea. The respiratory quinone of strain MFER- 1(T) was menaquinone- 7 and its major cellular fatty acids were anteiso- C-15: 0 (55.3 %), iso-C-16: 0 (17.5 %) and C-16: 0 (12.1 %). The polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, four unidentified aminophospholipids and an unidentified phospholipid. The 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain MFER- 1(T) showed similarity of 98.1 % to Cohnella cholangitidis' 1605-214(T) and below 98.0 % sequence similarity to the other Cohnella species. The phylogenomic tree indicated that strain MFER- 1(T) formed a reliable cluster with several Cohnella species. The estimated genome size of strain MFER-1(T) was 8.52 Mb. Genomic DNA G+C content was 50.7mol%. The orthologous average nucleotide identity, digital DNA-DNA hybridization and amino acid identity values of strain MFER- 1(T) with the most closely related species Cohnella cholangitidis' 1605-214(T) were 78.7, 23.0 and 79.6 %, respectively. Based on the phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic results, strain MFER-1(T) should represent a novel species of the genus Cohnella, for which the name Cohnella herbarum sp. nov. is proposed, with strain MFER- 1(T) (=KACC 21 257T=NBRC 114628(T)) as the type strain.

Automated summary

A novel aerobic bacterium, designated Cohnella herbarum sp. nov., was isolated from fermented liquor of wild grasses in the Republic of Korea. It is gram-positive, rod-shaped, motile, endospore-forming, and white-colored. The strain has a unique respiratory quinone and major cellular fatty acids.