Corynebacterium gottingense sp. nov., isolated from a clinical patient

A Gram-positive bacterial strain, 99221/2016^T, was isolated from blood of a patient with bacteraemia at the Institute of Medical Microbiology, Göttingen, Germany. The strain was rod-shaped with a palisade arrangement of cells, non-spore-forming, non-lipophilic, catalase-positive and oxidase-negative. It grew well at 37 °C on Columbia blood agar and showed good growth under aerobic, microaerophilic and anaerobic conditions. The colonies were white-cream, circular and convex with a shiny, smooth surface. The predominant respiratory quinones were MK-8(H2) and MK-9(H2). The polar lipids profile contained phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylinositol. Two unidentified phospholipids and several unidentified lipids were also detected. The prevalent cellular fatty acids comprised cis-9-octadecenoic acid (C18 : 1 ω9c), hexadecanoic acid (C16 : 0) and pentadecanoic acid (C15 : 0). Corynemycolates with 28-36 carbons in length were present. The whole-cell hydrolysate contained meso-diaminopimelic acid and arabinose, glucose, galactose and ribose as major sugars. Analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence identities revealed that the strain is most closely related to Corynebacterium imitans DSM 44264^T (98.0 %), Corynebacterium lipophiloflavum DSM 44291^T (96.9 %), Corynebacterium afermentans subsp. afermentans DSM 44280^T (96.9 %) and Corynebacterium afermentans subsp. lipophilum DSM 44282^T (96.8 %). The identity with Corynebacterium diphtheriae DSM 44123^T, the type species of the genus, was 94 %. The DNA G+C content was 69.2 mol%. DNA-DNA hybridization with Corynebacterium imitans DSM 44264^T revealed a value of 34 %, confirming that the strain represents a novel species. The type strain 99221/2016^T (DSM 103494^T=JCM 31931^T) is proposed to represent a novel species of the genus Corynebacterium with the name Corynebacterium gottingense.