New solvent-producing Clostridium sp. strains, hydrolyzing a wide range of polysaccharides, are closely related to Clostridium butyricum.

Thirteen new Clostridium strains, previously isolated from soil and found to produce high amounts of solvents from glucose, hydrolyzed a great variety of alpha- and beta-glycans, including raw starch, xylan, pectin, inulin and cellulose. The sequences of the PCR-amplified DNA fragments containing the variable 3' part of one of the 16S rRNA genes were 99.5% identical. The macrorestriction pattern of two endonucleolytic digests of chromosomal DNA in the pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) confirmed their high homogeneity on the DNA level. The complete 16S rRNA gene sequence of three selected strains was 99.8% identical to the 16S rRNA gene sequence from Clostridium butyricum and separates them from C. acetobutylicum. To the closely related four species of solventogenic clostridia a new group of strains has to be added, which has a great potential for the direct fermentation of biomass.