Enterococcus hailinensis sp. nov., Isolated from Traditional Chinese Pickle.

Abstract

Two enterococcal isolates, designated as strains N48-2^T and N48-9.1, were isolated from traditional Chinese pickle ('Suan cai') and characterized using a polyphasic approach. Phylogenies based on 16S rRNA gene sequences and whole genome sequences indicated that strains N48-2^T and N48-9.1 were most closely related to Enterococcus hermanniensis LMG 12317^T. Strains N48-2^T and N48-9.1 shared the highest 16S rRNA (99.5%), pheS (90.3%), rpoA (97.7% and 97.5%) and concatenated pheS and rpoA (95.1% and 95.0%) gene sequence similarities with the type strain of E. hermanniensis. Strains N48-2^T and N48-9.1 had 86.7%-87.9% ANI, 33.6%-33.8% dDDH and 91.7%-92.2% AAI values with E. hermanniensis DSM 17122^T. Phenotypically, strains N48-2^T and N48-9.1 could be distinguished from DSM 17122^T by acid production from D-galactose, L-sorbose, L-rhamnose and amygdalin, H₂S production, resistance to streptomycin sulfate (50 μg/ml), kanamycin sulfate (50 μg/ml), neomycin sulfate (5 μg/ml) and gentamicin sulfate (5 μg/ml), tolerance to 6% NaCl, and growth at pH 5 and 40 °C. Based on these data, strains N48-2^T (= JCM 37000^T = CCTCC AB 2024127^T = LMG 33662^T) and N48-9.1 represent a novel species, in which the name Enterococcus hailinensis sp. nov., is proposed.