Corynebacterium pyruviciproducens sp. nov., a pyruvic acid producer

A coryneform strain, 06-1773O(T) (=WAL 19168(T)), derived from a groin abscess sample was characterized using phenotypic and molecular taxonomic methods. Comparative analyses revealed more than 3 % divergence of the 16S rRNA gene sequence and about 10 % divergence of the partial rpoB gene sequence from the type strain of Corynebacterium glucuronolyticum. The strain could also be differentiated from C. glucuronolyticum by a set of phenotypic properties. A DNA-DNA relatedness study between strain WAL 19168(T) and C. glucuronolyticum CCUG 35055(T) showed a relatedness value of 13.3 % (13.7 % on repeat analysis). The genotypic and phenotypic data show that the strain merits classification within a novel species of Corynebacterium. We propose the name Corynebacterium pyruviciproducens sp. nov. for the novel species. The type strain is 06-1773O(T) (=WAL 19168(T) =CCUG 57046(T) =ATCC BAA-1742(T)).