Cohnella cellulosilytica sp. nov., isolated from buffalo faeces

A cellulose-degrading bacterium, strain FCN3-3^T, was isolated from buffalo faeces collected in Nakhonnayok province, Thailand. The strain was characterized based on its phenotypic and genotypic characteristics. Strain FCN3-3^T was a Gram-positive, aerobic, spore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium. It contained meso-diaminopimelic acid in cell-wall peptidoglycan. The major menaquinone was MK-7. Anteiso-C_15 : 0 (52.5 %), iso-C_16 : 0 (18.9 %) and C_16 : 0 (9.1 %) were the predominant cellular fatty acids, and diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and lysyl-phosphatidylglycerol were the major phospholipids. The DNA G+C content was 58.0 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis using 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain FCN3-3^T was affiliated to the genus Cohnella and was closely related to Cohnella phaseoli GSPC1^T, Cohnella luojiensis HY-22R^T and Cohnella hongkongensis HKU3^T, with 97.2, 96.8 and 96.3 % sequence similarity, respectively. Strain FCN3-3^T could be clearly distinguished from all known species of the genus Cohnella by its physiological and biochemical characteristics as well as its phylogenetic position and level of DNA–DNA relatedness. Therefore, the strain represents a novel species of the genus Cohnella, for which the name Cohnella cellulosilytica sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is FCN3-3^T ( = KCTC 13645^T = TISTR 1996^T = PCU 323^T).