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

  • Microbial Systematics and Evolutionary Microbiology
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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 C18:1ω7c, C16:0, C19:0ω8c 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 Acetobacteaceae, for which we propose the name Oecophyllibacter saccharovorans gen. nov. sp. nov., and strain Ha5T as the type strain.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Professor Aharon Oren for his advice on etymology and nomenclature of the strains. KOC thanks MyBrain15 Postgraduate Scholarship Programme for the scholarship (MyPhD, KPT(B)900909146137). WSST thanks the Bright Sparks Program of the University of Malaya for scholarship awarded. This work was supported by University of Malaya Research Grants (FRGS grant FP022-2018A), University of Malaya High Impact Research Grants (UM-MOHE HIR Grant UM.C/625/1/HIR/MOHE/CHAN/14/1, Grant No. H-50001-A000027; UM-MOHE HIR Grant UM.C/625/1/HIR/MOHE/CHAN/01, Grant No. A-000001-50001) awarded to KGC and Postgraduate Research (PPP) Grant (Grant No. PG089-2015B) awarded to KOC.

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  1. Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Kah-Ooi Chua, Wah-Seng See-Too, Jia-Yi Tan, Hoi-Sen Yong, Wai-Fong Yin & Kok-Gan Chan

  2. Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    Sze-Looi Song

  3. China-ASEAN College of Marine Sciences, Xiamen University Malaysia, 43900, Sepang, Selangor, Malaysia

    Sze-Looi Song

  4. International Genome Centre, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, P. R. China

    Kok-Gan Chan

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  1. Kah-Ooi Chua
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Chua, KO., See-Too, WS., Tan, JY. et al. Oecophyllibacter saccharovorans gen. nov. sp. nov., a bacterial symbiont of the weaver ant Oecophylla smaragdina. J Microbiol. 58, 988–997 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-020-0325-8

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