Scientific Publications by FDA Staff

Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 2014 Oct;64(Pt 10):3402-10

Re-examination of the taxonomic status of Enterobacter helveticus, Enterobacter pulveris, and Enterobacter turicensis as members of Cronobacter and description of Siccibacter turicensis com. nov., Franconibacter helveticus comb. nov., and Franconibacter pulveris com. nov.

Stephan R, Grim CJ, Gopinath GR, Mammel MK, Sathyamoorthy V, Trach LH, Chase HR, Fanning S, Tall BD

Recently, a taxonomical re-evaluation of the genus Enterobacter, based on MLST analysis, has proposed that the recently described species, E. pulveris, E. helveticus, and E. turicensis, be reclassified as novel Cronobacter species. New genome-scale analyses, to include average nucleotide identity, genome-scale phylogeny, and k-mer analysis, coupled with previously reported DNA-DNA hybridization values and biochemical characterization strongly assert that all three Enterobacter species are not members of the genus, Cronobacter, nor do they belong to the re-evaluated genus, Enterobacter. Further, data from this polyphasic study showed that all three species constitute two new genera. We propose to reclassify E. pulveris and E. helveticus into Franconibacter gen. nov. as Franconibacter pulveris comb. nov. and Franconibacter helveticus comb. nov., respectively, and E. turicensis into Siccibacter gen. nov. as Siccibacter turicensis comb. nov.