Report of 20 unrecorded bacterial species in Korea belonging to the phylum Firmicutes during surveys in 2020

Abstract

During a project aiming to comprehensively investigate indigenous prokaryotic species in Korea, a total of 20 bacterial strains phylogenetically belonging to the the class Bacilli of the phylum Firmicutes were isolated from various environmental sources such as soil, air, tidal flat, sea water, grain, wetland, breast milk and healthy human urine. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that 20 bacterial strains showed the high sequence similarities (≥98.7%) to the closest type strains and formed robust phylogenetic clades with closely related species of validly published names in the class Bacilli of the phylum Firmicutes. In the present study, we report 20 species of 13 genera of seven families of two orders of one class in the phylum Firmicutes, which have not been previously reported in Korea. Morphological, biochemical, and physiological characteristics, isolation sources, and NIBR deposit numbers of these unrecorded bacterial species are described in the species descriptions.