Enterococcus florum sp. nov., isolated from a cotton flower (Gossypium hirsutum L.).

A Gram-stain-positive and catalase negative coccus, designated strain Gos25-1T, isolated from a cotton flower (Gossypium hirsutum L.) collected from Khao Wong district, Kalasin province, Thailand. The taxonomic position of this strain was systematically studied based upon polyphasic taxonomic methods. The strain was facultatively anaerobic and produced l-lactic acid from glucose. The predominant cellular fatty acids were the straight-chain fatty acids C18 : 1ω9c and C16 : 0. According to 16S rRNA and phenylalanyl-tRNA synthase alpha subunit (pheS) gene sequence similarity, this strain was closely related to Enterococcus pallens NBRC 100697T, E. hermanniensis CIP 108559T, E. avium NBRC 100477T and E. raffinosus NBRC 100492T with 98.9-99.1 % and 77.0-82.0 % sequence similarities, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that strain Gos25-1T was clearly distinguished from closely related species of the genus Enterococcus. Draft genome of Gos25-1T had a size of 3.99 Mb which was contained 3788 coding sequences with in silico G+C content of 42.4 mol%. The ANIb and a digital DNA-DNA hybridisation (dDDH) values between strain Gos25-1T and the closest related species, E. pallens NBRC 100697T were 73.65 and 21.10 %, respectively. According to polyphasic characterisation, this strain represents a novel species of the genus Enterococcus, for which the name Enterococcus florum sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is Gos25-1T (=CIP 110956T=LMG 29007T=NBRC 111461T=TISTR 2382T).