Fusobacterium hwasookii sp. nov., Isolated from a Human Periodontitis Lesion Eugene Cho • Soon-Nang Park • Yun Kyong Lim • Yeseul Shin • Jayoung Paek • Cheol Ho Hwang • Young-Hyo Chang • Joong-Ki Kook Received: 15 July 2014 / Accepted: 12 August 2014 / Published online: 26 September 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 Abstract In this study, we classified the five strains (ChDC F128 T , ChDC F145, ChDC F174, ChDC F206, and ChDC F300) as a novel species of genus Fusobacterium by DNA–DNA hybridization and multi-locus phylogenetic analysis (MLPA), based on a single sequence (24,715 bp) of 22 concatenated housekeeping genes, with morpholog- ical and chemotaxonomic characteristics. DNA–DNA hybridization data showed that the values of genomic relatedness between ChDC F128 T and each of the other novel strains were ranged from 79.0 to 82.6 %, while those of genomic relatedness between ChDC F128 T and type strain of each of subspecies of F. nucleatum or Fusobac- terium periodonticum were ranged from 40.9 to 54.4 %. MLPA revealed that the 5 strains were clustered as one group and clearly discriminated with F. nucleatum and F. periodonticum with 100 % bootstrap value. The DNA G?C content of the five novel strains were ranged from 26.9 to 27.0 mol%. The cellular fatty acid analysis of clinical isolates and type strains revealed C 14:0 ,C 16:0 , and cis-9 C 16:1 as the major fatty acids. The cell wall pepti- doglycan of the 5 strains was comprised of meso-lanthio- nine. These results show that the 5 strains are novel species and belong to the genus Fusobacterium. Strain ChDC F128 T (=KCOM 1249 T = KCTC 5108 T = JCM 30218 T ) is suggested to be the type strain of a novel species of genus Fusobacterium, for which the name Fusobacterium hwasookii sp. nov. is proposed. Introduction Fusobacterium nucleatum is a gram-negative, anaerobic, fusiform-shaped bacterium and is normally isolated from the oral cavity in human [13]. F. nucleatum may play an important role in dental plaque formation, acting as a bridge of early colonizers such as gram-positive, faculta- tive anaerobes, and late colonizers such as gram-negative, strict anaerobes [1, 2]. F. nucleatum was classified into 5 subspecies (nucleatum, polymorphum, vincentii, animalis, and fusiforme) based on the polyacrylamide gel electro- phoretic pattern of the whole-cell proteins and DNA homology [3] or electrophoretic patterns of glutamate dehydrogenase and 2-oxoglutarate reductase and DNA– DNA hybridization patterns [5, 6]. F. nucleatum subsp. fusiforme has been reclassified into the F. nucleatum subsp. vincentii based on phylogenetic analysis using a single sequence (24,715 bp) of concatenated 22 housekeeping genes of 8 F. nucleatum strains, including type strains of 5 F. nucleatum subspecies [12]. Recently, 5 strains (ChDC F128 T , ChDC F145, ChDC F174, ChDC F206, and ChDC F300) of F. nucleatum were isolated from subgingival Eugene Cho and Soon-Nang Park contributed equally to this study. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00284-014-0692-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. E. Cho Á S.-N. Park Á Y. K. Lim Á J.-K. Kook (&) Korean Collection for Oral Microbiology and Department of Oral Biochemistry, School of Dentistry, Chosun University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea e-mail: jkkook@chosun.ac.kr Y. Shin Á J. Paek Á Y.-H. Chang (&) Korean Collection for Type Cultures, Biological Resource Center, KRIBB, Daejeon, Republic of Korea e-mail: yhchang@kribb.re.kr C. H. Hwang Department of Environmental Engineering, Chosun University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea 123 Curr Microbiol (2015) 70:169–175 DOI 10.1007/s00284-014-0692-7