Enterococcus camelliae sp. nov., isolated from fermented tea leaves in Thailand.

A Gram-positive and catalase-negative coccus that formed chains, strain FP15-1(T), isolated from fermented tea leaves ('miang'), was studied systematically. The strain was facultatively anaerobic and produced l-lactic acid from glucose. Demethylmenaquinone (DMK-7) was the major menaquinone. Straight-chain unsaturated fatty acids C(16 : 1) and C(18 : 1) were the dominant components. The DNA G+C content was 37.8 mol%. On the basis of 16S rRNA and RNA polymerase alpha subunit (rpoA) gene sequence analysis, strain FP15-1(T) was closely related to Enterococcus italicus KCTC 5373(T), with 99.2 and 93.8 % similarity, respectively. The strain could be clearly distinguished from E. italicus ATCC 5373(T) by low DNA-DNA relatedness (< or =33.8 %) and phenotypic characteristics. Therefore, this strain represent a novel species of the genus Enterococcus, for which the name Enterococcus camelliae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is FP15-1(T) (=KCTC 13133(T) =NBRC 101868(T) =NRIC 0105(T) =TISTR 932(T) =PCU 277(T)).