Cellulomonas chitinilytica sp nov., a chitinolytic bacterium isolated from cattle-farm compost

A bacterial strain, designated X.bu-b(T), with chitin-, xylan-, cellulose- and starch-degrading activities, was isolated from compost at a cattle farm near Daejeon, Republic of Korea. The strain comprised Gram-positive, aerobic or facultatively anaerobic, non-motile, rod-shaped bacteria. On the basis of an analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences, the phylogenetic position of X.bu-bT was within the genus Cellulomonas, and the strain exhibited relatively high sequence similarities with respect to Cellulomonas biazotea DSM 20112(T) (98.1 %), C. cellasea DSM 20118(T) (98.1 %) C. fimi DSM 20113(T) (98.0%), C. terrae DB5(T) (97.9%), C. humilata ATCC 25174(T) (97.7 %), C. xylanilytica XIL11(T) (97.5%), C. uda DSM 20107(T) (97.4%), C. gelida DSM 20111(T) (97.3 %), C. iranensis O-T (97.3%) and C. flavigena DSM 20109(T) (97.0%). The phylogenetic distance from other Cellulomonas species with validly published names was greater than 3 % (i.e. less than 97.0 % sequence similarity). Chemotaxonomic data also supported the classification of strain X.bu-b(T) within the genus Celluloinonas: L-ornithine was the cell-wall diamino acid, anteiso-C-15:0 and anteiso-C-17:0 were the major fatty acids, rhamnose, galactose, xylose and ribose were the cell-wall sugars, MK-9(H-4) was the predominant menaquinone and diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol were present in the polar lipids. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 73.6 mol%. DNA-DNA hybridization experiments showed that the values for DNA-DNA relatedness between strain X.bu-b(T) and the phylogenetically closest neighbours were below 23%. On the basis of its phenotypic properties and phylogenetic distinctiveness, strain X.bu-b(T) represents a novel species of the genus Cellulomonas, for which the name Ceflutonrionas chitinilytica sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is X.bu-b(T) (=KCTC 19133(T) =DSM 17922(T)).