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Cellulomonas macrotermitis sp. nov., a chitinolytic and cellulolytic bacterium isolated from the hindgut of a fungus-growing termite

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Abstract

To investigate the symbiotic roles of the gut microbiota in the fungus-growing termite Macrotermes barneyi, a novel strain with chitinolytic and cellulolytic activity, designated strain an-chi-1T, was isolated from the hindgut of M. barneyi. Strain an-chi-1T grows optimally at 28–30 °C, pH 8.0 in PYG medium. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, this isolate belongs to the genus Cellulomonas with high sequence similarity to Cellulomonas iranensis (99.4%), followed by Cellulomonas flavigena (98.4%), Cellulomonas phragmiteti (97.4%), Cellulomonas oligotrophica (97.2%) and Cellulomonas terrae (97.0%). The DNA–DNA relatedness between an-chi-1T and the type strains of C. iranensis and C. flavigena DSM20109T are 35.4% and 23.7%, respectively. The major cellular fatty acids are anteiso-C15:0 and C14:0. The polar lipid profile consists of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol mannosides, phosphatidylinositol dimannosides and one unidentified phospholipid. The cell-wall sugar is ribose. The peptidoglycan contains glutamic acid, aspartic acid and alanine. The DNA G+C content is 67.3 mol%. Based on its distinctive phenotypic, phylogenetic, and chemotaxonomic characteristics, an-chi-1T represents a novel species of the genus Cellulomonas, for which the name Cellulomonas macrotermitis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is an-chi-1T (= JCM 31923T = CICC 24195T).

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Funding

This study was supported in parts by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31272370) and the National Basic Research Program of China (973 program: 2011CB707402).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Microbial Technology, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, People’s Republic of China

    Xinxin Sun, Jingjing Li, Jiao Du & Jinfeng Ni

  2. Hengyang Management Center of Termite Control, Hengyang, 421000, People’s Republic of China

    Hesheng Xiao

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  1. Xinxin Sun
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  2. Jingjing Li
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  3. Jiao Du
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  4. Hesheng Xiao
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Correspondence to Jinfeng Ni.

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Sun, X., Li, J., Du, J. et al. Cellulomonas macrotermitis sp. nov., a chitinolytic and cellulolytic bacterium isolated from the hindgut of a fungus-growing termite. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 111, 471–478 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10482-017-0968-6

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