Enterococcus devriesei sp. nov., associated with animal sources

1 Czech Collection of Microorganisms, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University Brno, Tvrdého 14, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic 2 BCCM/LMG Bacteria Collection, Faculty of Sciences, Ghent University, Ledeganckstraat 35, B 9000 Ghent, Belgium 3 Department of Food and Environmental Hygiene, University of Helsinki, Agnes Sjöbergin katu 2, 00014 Helsinki University, Finland 4 Laboratory of Microbiology, Faculty of Sciences, Ghent University, Ledeganckstraat 35, B 9000 Ghent, Belgium Correspondence Pavel vec mpavel{at}sci.muni.cz The taxonomic position of two bovine strains, LMG 13603 and LMG 14595, assigned to the species Enterococcus raffinosus on the basis of biochemical features, was reinvestigated. Both reference strains and two other isolates, 6/1 (=LMG 22829) originating from a charcoal-broiled river lamprey and IE38.4 (=LMG 22830) from the air of a poultry slaughter by-product processing plant, occupied a clearly separate position, on the basis of sequence analysis of the housekeeping gene pheS (encoding the phenylalanyl-tRNA synthase -subunit), relative to the type strain of E. raffinosus and all other enterococcal species with validly published names. 16S rRNA gene sequencing of strains LMG 13603, LMG 14595, 6/1 and IE38.4 confirmed their phylogenetic position in the Enterococcus avium species group, there being more than 99 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to most members of the group, including E. raffinosus , and revealed Enterococcus pseudoavium as the closest phylogenetic relative (99·8–99·9 %). Further phenotypic and genotypic analyses using whole-cell-protein electrophoresis, (GTG) 5 -PCR fingerprinting, ribotyping and DNA–DNA hybridization experiments demonstrated that all four strains represent a novel enterococcal species, for which the name Enterococcus devriesei sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is LMG 14595 T (=CCM 7299 T ). Published online ahead of print on 22 July 2005 as DOI 10.1099/ijs.0.63851-0. The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the 16S rRNA gene sequences of E. devriesei LMG 14595 T , LMG 13603, LMG 22829 and LMG 22830 are AJ891167 , DQ010644 , DQ010642 and DQ010643 , respectively. A distance matrix tree, (GTG) 5 -PCR fingerprint patterns and ribotype patterns for E. devriesei sp. nov. and phylogenetically related enterococcal species are available as supplementary figures in IJSEM Online.