A taxonomic study of a Gram-stain-positive, rod-shaped, non-motile, non-spore-forming, catalase-negative bacterium, isolated from the gut of an insect, Cryptocercus kyebangensis collected from the mountainous area of Seoraksan, Yangyang-gun, Republic of Korea, was conducted. Its 16S rRNA gene sequence showed high similarity values to Weissella ghanensis LMG 24286T (95.9 %), Weissella beninensis 2L24P13T (95.9 %), Weissella fabalis M75T (95.7 %) and Weissella fabaria 257T (95.7 %). The phylogenetic tree indicated that the novel organism formed a cluster with W. ghanensis LMG 24286T, W. beninensis 2L24P13T, W. fabalis M75T and W. fabaria 257T. The G+C content was 41.1 mol% on the basis of the whole-genome sequence. Polar lipids consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, two unidentified aminophospholipids, one unidentified phospholipid and four unidentified lipids. The major cellular fatty acids were C18 : 1 ω9c, C16 : 0, C14 : 0, summed feature 8 (C18 : 1ω7c and/or C18 : 1ω6c) and summed feature 8 (C16 : 1 ω7c and/or C16 : 1 ω6c). The cell-wall peptidoglycan was of A4α type with the interpeptide bridge of Gly-d-Glu. Based on these results, strain 26KH-42T could be classified as a novel species of the genus Weissella, for which the name Weissellacryptocerci sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is 26KH-42T (=KACC 18423T=NBRC 113066T).
Keywords: Cryptocercus kyebangensis; Weissella cryptocerci; new taxa; taxonomy.