Corynebacterium mooreparkense, a later heterotypic synonym of Corynebacterium variabile

Strains of a Gram-positive bacterium were isolated from the Irish smear-ripened cheese Gubbeen, and assigned to a new species, Corynebacterium mooreparkense, in 2001. During a further study on the same cheese, no additional isolates from this species could be found. Instead, multiple isolates of its nearest phylogenetic neighbour, Corynebacterium variabile, were found. A first screening with rep-PCR and SDS-PAGE pointed to a similarity between C. mooreparkense and C. variabile. Following this peculiar result, attempts were made to collect all type strains deposited at different culture collections and all strains described by Brennan et al. [Int J Syst Evol Microbiol (2001) 51, 843-852]. Subsequently, 16S rRNA gene sequencing and DNA-DNA hybridizations were performed. All C. mooreparkense strains had a 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of at least 99.5 % with C. variabile and the DNA-DNA relatedness was 95 %. On the basis of these results, it is concluded that C. mooreparkense is a later heterotypic synonym of C. variabile.