A Gram-staining-positive, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped, non-motile and aerobic bacterium, strain THG-e54(T), was isolated from soil of a flowerbed in Bucheon, South Korea. The taxonomic position of this bacterium was determined in an investigation based on a polyphasic approach. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed a clear affiliation of strain THG-e54(T) with the genus Terrabacter. Strain THG-e54(T) showed the closest phylogenetic relationship with Terrabacter tumescens DSM 20308(T) with a 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of 98.6%. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 71.0 mol%. The major cellular fatty acids of strain THG-e54(T) were iso-C15:0 and iso-C16:0, and the predominant menaquinone was menaquinone MK-8(H4). The major polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, an unidentified amino-containing phosphoglycolipid, unidentified phospholipids, an unidentified aminolipid and an unidentified aminophospholipid. The cell-wall peptidoglycan type was ll-diaminopimelic acid and the cell-wall sugars were glucose and ribose. DNA-DNA hybridization experiments revealed a low level of DNA-DNA relatedness (less than 35.2%) between strain THG-e54(T) and its five closest relatives. The combined phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic data showed that strain THG-e54(T) could be clearly distinguished from closely related recognized members of the genus Terrabacter. Therefore the results of this study indicated the existence of a novel species of the genus Terrabacter , for which we propose the name Terrabacter koreensis sp. nov., with strain THG-e54(T) ( = KACC 17589(T) = JCM 19342(T)) as the type strain.
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