Lactobacillus equi sp. nov., a predominant intestinal Lactobacillus species of the horse isolated from faeces of healthy horses.

Lactobacillus equi sp. nov. is described on the basis of 18 strains isolated as one of the predominant intestinal lactobacilli from horse faecal specimens. These 18 strains were isolated from 10 horses of 6 different farms out of 20 horses of 10 farms examined. They were gram-positive, facultatively anaerobic, catalase-negative, non-spore-forming, non-motile, lactic-acid-homofermentative rods. The DNA G+C content was 38.9+/-0.8 mol %. DNA-DNA hybridization failed to associate these strains closely with any of the validly described type strains used. Analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence of representative strain YIT 0455T revealed that the new isolates represent a new Lactobacillus species, for which the name Lactobacillus equi is proposed. The type strain is YIT 0455T (= ATCC BAA-261T = JCM 10991T).