Taxonomic characterization of Mogibacterium diversum sp. nov. and Mogibacterium neglectum sp. nov., isolated from human oral cavities.

Novel isolates, strains HM-7, HM-6, HH-31, P9a-hT and UJB13-d, which were isolated from tongue plaque and necrotic dental pulp, were studied taxonomically and phylogenetically. These organisms were anaerobic, non-spore-forming, gram-positive, rod-shaped bacteria that were inert in most of the conventional biochemical tests and phenotypically resemble Mogibacterium species or asaccharolytic Eubacterium species. The G+C contents of the DNAs from the novel isolates ranged from 41 to 42 mol %. DNA-DNA hybridization studies demonstrated that these strains might be assigned to the genus Mogibacterium but not to the previously described species. It was also apparent that strain HM-7 belonged to the same species as strains HM-6 and HH-31, and that strains P9a-hT and UJB13-d belonged to a second species. The levels of DNA-DNA relatedness to asaccharolytic Eubacterium species, including Eubacterium brachy, Eubacterium nodatum, Eubacterium saphenum and the more recently proposed Eubacterium minutum and Eubacterium exiguum (reclassified as Slackia exigua), are less than 2%. The results of 16S rDNA sequence comparisons revealed that these organisms represent novel lineages distinct from all previously described species of gram-positive, rod-shaped bacteria. On the basis of phenotypic characteristics, DNA-DNA hybridization data and phylogenetic analysis with 16S rRNA gene sequence data, new species are proposed, namely Mogibacterium diversum (for strains HM-7, HM-6 and HH-31) and Mogibacterium neglectum (for strains P9a-hT and UJB13-d). HM-7T (= ATCC 700923T = JCM 11205T) is the type strain of the former and P9a-hT (= ATCC 700924T = JCM 11204T) is the type strain for the latter.