Description of Auricoccus indicus gen. nov., sp. nov., isolated from skin of human ear

Abstract

A Gram-stain-positive, non-motile, non-spore-forming, small spherical bacterium, strain S31T, was isolated from skin surface (external ear lobe) of a healthy human subject and characterized using a polyphasic approach. On the basis of 1507 bp 16S rRNA gene sequence comparison, S31T showed highest (92.8 %, AY119686) sequence similarity with Macrococcus brunensis CCUG 47200T followed by Macrococcus caseolyticus DSM 20597T (92.7 % AP009484) and formed a separate clade with 65 % bootstrap support. The DNA G+C content was found to be 34 mol%. Anteiso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C17 : 0 and iso-C16 : 0 are the predominant fatty acids in fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) profile of strain S31T. It contained A3α type peptidoglycan with l-Lys-Gly3-l-Ala peptide. Comparative study of morphological and physiological traits indicated that S31T has phenetically diverged from its closest relatives. On the basis of morphological, chemotaxonomic and genotypic data, S31T showed marked distinctions from its closest relatives of the family Staphylococcaceae and is proposed to represent a novel genus Auricoccus with Auricoccus indicus as type species of the genus. S31T (CCUG 69858T=KCTC 33611T=MCC 3027T) is the type strain of the species.

Phylogenomic analyses of the Staphylococcaceae family suggest the reclassification of five species within the genus Staphylococcus as heterotypic synonyms, the promotion of five subspecies to novel species, the taxonomic reassignment of five Staphylococcus species to Mammaliicoccus gen. nov., and the formal assignment of Nosocomiicoccus to the family Staphylococcaceae

“…The genus Nosocomiicoccus is comprised of two species, N. ampullae and N. massiliensis, both of which were isolated from clinical samples [5,7]. The genera Aliicoccus, Abyssicoccus, Auricoccus and Corticicoccus are each comprised of a single species that was isolated from a hypersaline lake, marine sediment, the skin of human ear and the bark of Populus species respectively [9,10,12,13].…”

Description and Comparative Genomics of Macrococcus caseolyticus subsp. hominis subsp. nov., Macrococcus goetzii sp. nov., Macrococcus epidermidis sp. nov., and Macrococcus bohemicus sp. nov., Novel Macrococci From Human Clinical Material With Virulence Potential and Suspected Uptake of Foreign DNA by Natural Transformation

“…These genes could serve as a defense mechanism against active oxygen toxicity and could prevent the oxidative damage of DNA (Demple et al, 1983 ). The same smr cassette-like structure was also identified in the chromosomes of strain CCM 7100 T and newly described species Auricoccus indicus , which is distantly related to macrococci (Prakash et al, 2017 ), hence pointing to the intergeneric horizontal transfer of these resistance genes.…”

Unification of Abyssicoccus albus Jiang et al. 2016 and Auricoccus indicus Prakash et al. 2017 and the status of the genus Auricoccus Prakash et al. 2017

“…albus pertaining to the white colour of the type strain colonies). The characteristics of the species are essentially as provided by Jiang et al [3], but based on the Auricoccus indicus description [1], members of the species may have a colony colour different from white, and while they are mesophiles and neutrophiles and can tolerate at least 10 % NaCl in growth media, their temperature, pH and NaCl tolerance growth ranges may differ between strains.…”

“…Unfortunately, strain YIM M12140 T isolated from marine sediment in the Indian Ocean and proposed as the type strain of Abyssicoccus albus gen. nov., sp. nov. by Jiang et al in 2016 [3,4] was not included into the study by Prakash et al [1]. The position of this strain in the neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences [3] is similar to that of Aur.…”

“…However, there was the large difference between the DNA G+C content values of A. albus YIM M12140 T (42.4 mol% [3]) and Aur. indicus S31 T (34.0 mol% [1]) presented in their descriptions that might indicate that the strains at least belong to different species, but the calculations of the G+C contents of A. albus DSM 29158 T and Aur. indicus S31 T DNAs based on their whole genome sequences by using the rast server [9] show that the difference is not more than 0.1 mol%, which is clearly in the range of 1 mol% intraspecies variation [10].…”