Vagococcus silagei sp. nov., isolated from brewer’s grain used to make silage in Taiwan

A Gram-stain-positive, coccus- or oval-shaped, non-motile, haemolytic, asporogenous, catalase- and oxidase-negative, and facultatively anaerobic strain, 2B-2 T , was isolated from a brewer’s grain used to make silage in Taiwan. Comparative analyses of 16S rRNA, hsp60 and pheS gene sequences demonstrated that strain 2B-2 T was a member of the genus Vagococcus . On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, the type strains of Vagococcus teuberi (98.4 % similarity), Vagococcus carniphilus (98.4 %), Vagococcus martis (98.2 %), Vagococcus penaei (98.2 %) and Vagococcus fluvialis (98.0 %) were the closest neighbours to this novel strain. The similarity levels of concatenated housekeeping gene sequences ( hsp60 and pheS ) between strain 2B-2 T and these closely related species ranged from 84.5 to 88.0 %. The average nucleotide identity and in silico DNA–DNA hybridization values between strain 2B-2 T and its closest relatives were lower than 72.9 and 21.6 %, respectively. The DNA G+C content was 34.7 mol%. Phenotypic and genotypic features demonstrated that strain 2B-2 T represents a novel species of the genus Vagococcus , for which the name Vagococcus silagei sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is 2B-2 T (=BCRC 81132 T =NBRC 113536 T ).