Oecophyllibacter saccharovorans gen. nov. sp. nov., a bacterial symbiont of the weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina

Kah-Ooi Chua; Wah-Seng See-Too; Jia-Yi Tan; Sze-Looi Song; Hoi-Sen Yong; Wai-Fong Yin; Kok-Gan Chan

doi:10.1007/s12275-020-0325-8

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Oecophyllibacter saccharovorans gen. nov. sp. nov., a bacterial symbiont of the weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina: Kah-Ooi Chua ¹, Wah-Seng See-Too ¹, Jia-Yi Tan ¹, Sze-Looi Song ^2,3, Hoi-Sen Yong ¹, Wai-Fong Yin ¹, Kok-Gan Chan ^1,4; Journal of Microbiology 2020;58(12):988-997.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-020-0325-8
Published online: October 23, 2020

¹Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ²Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, ³China-ASEAN College of Marine Sciences, Xiamen University Malaysia, 43900 Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia, ⁴International Genome Centre, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, P. R. China

Corresponding author: Kok-Gan Chan ,

Received: 26 June 2020 • Revised: 19 August 2020 • Accepted: 10 September 2020

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Abstract

In this study, bacterial strains Ha5T, Ta1, and Jb2 were isolated from different colonies of weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina. They were identified as bacterial symbionts of the ant belonging to family Acetobacteraceae and were distinguished as different strains based on distinctive random-amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) fingerprints. Cells of these bacterial strains were Gram-negative, rod-shaped, aerobic, non-motile, catalase-positive and oxidase-negative. They were able to grow at 15–37°C (optimum, 28–30°C) and in the presence of 0–1.5% (w/v) NaCl (optimum 0%). Their predominant cellular fatty acids were C18:1 ω7c, C16:0, C19:0 ω8c cyclo, C14:0, and C16:0 2-OH. Strains Ha5T, Ta1, and Jb2 shared highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity (94.56–94.63%) with Neokomagataea tanensis NBRC106556T of family Acetobacteraceae. Both 16S rRNA gene sequence-based phylogenetic analysis and core gene-based phylogenomic analysis placed them in a distinct lineage in family Acetobacteraceae. These bacterial strains shared higher than species level thresholds in multiple overall genome-relatedness indices which indicated that they belonged to the same species. In addition, they did not belong to any of the current taxa of Acetobacteraceae as they had low pairwise average nucleotide identity (< 71%), in silico DNA-DNA hybridization (< 38%) and average amino acid identity (< 67%) values with all the type members of the family. Based on these results, bacterial strains Ha5T, Ta1, and Jb2 represent a novel species of a novel genus in family Acetobacteraceae, for which we propose the name Oecophyllibacter saccharovorans gen. nov. sp. nov., and strain Ha5T as the type strain.

Keywords: Oecophyllibacter saccharovorans, Acetobacteraceae, insect, phylogenomics, percentage of conserved protein

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Oecophyllibacter saccharovorans gen. nov. sp. nov., a bacterial symbiont of the weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina

J. Microbiol. 2020;58(12):988-997. Published online October 23, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-020-0325-8

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