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Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Research Centre, 430 Gouin Blvd, St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada J3B 3E6
Correspondence
Jean-Charles Côté
cotejc{at}agr.gc.ca
The nucleotide sequences of the 3' end of the 16S rDNA and the 16S23S internal transcribed spacer (ITS) of 40 Bacillaceae species were determined. These included 21 Bacillus, 9 Paenibacillus, 6 Brevibacillus, 2 Geobacillus, 1 Marinibacillus and 1 Virgibacillus species. Comparative sequence analysis of a 220 bp region covering a highly conserved 150 bp sequence located at the 3' end of the 16S rRNA coding region and a conserved 70 bp sequence located at the 5' end of the 16S23S ITS of the 40 species and six sequences available in GenBank were used to infer the phylogenetic relationships between all 46 taxa. When a maximal distance (Dmax, where D refers to the number of nucleotide substitutions per site) of 0·31 was introduced as a threshold to determine groupings, 10 phylogenetically distinct clusters were revealed. Twenty-six Bacillus species were separated in seven groups (I, II, III, IV, V, VI and X), but Bacillus circulans remained ungrouped. All six Brevibacillus species under study were in Group VII. The nine Paenibacillus species fell into two distinct groups (VIII and IX). Species with Dmax values within 0·05 were considered to be very closely related. These were Bacillus psychrophilus and Bacillus psychrosaccharolyticus in Group II; Bacillus maroccanus and Bacillus simplex in Group II; Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, Bacillus atrophaeus, Bacillus mojavensis and Bacillus subtilis in Group VI; Bacillus fusiformis and Bacillus sphaericus in Group VI; Brevibacillus brevis and Brevibacillus formosus in Group VII; Paenibacillus gordonae and Paenibacillus validus in Group VIII; and Bacillus anthracis, Bacillus cereus, Bacillus mycoides and Bacillus thuringiensis in Group X. The phylogenetic classification presented here is, in general, in agreement with current classifications based on phenotypic and molecular data. Our findings suggest, however, that in some cases, further divisions or, conversely, further groupings might be warranted. Should current classifications be re-examined in the light of our results, Dmax values of 0·31 and 0·05, as exemplified here, may prove useful threshold values for the grouping of Bacillaceae into taxa akin to genera and species, respectively. These Dmax thresholds may also reveal, in a different way, bacterial species for which further characterization might be warranted for proper classification and/or reassignment.
Published online ahead of print on 19 September 2002 as DOI 10.1099/ijs.0.02346-0.
The GenBank accession numbers for the 16S rDNA and 16S23S ITS of different strains of Bacillus and related genera used in this work are AF478062AF478111.
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