%0 Journal Article %A Ungkulpasvich, Umbhorn %A Baramee, Sirilak %A Uke, Ayaka %A Kosugi, Akihiko %T Capillibacterium thermochitinicola gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel anaerobic thermophilic chitinolytic bacterium from compost %D 2021 %J International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, %V 71 %N 3 %@ 1466-5034 %C 004693 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/ijsem.0.004693 %K Firmicutes %K thermophilic %K Hydrogenispora %K Capillibacterium %K OPB54 %K anaerobe %K chitin degradation %I Microbiology Society, %X A novel Gram-negative, spore forming, obligately anaerobic, thermophilic, chitin-degrading bacterium, designated UUS1-1T, was isolated from compost on Ishigaki Island, Japan by enrichment culturing using chitin powder as the carbon source. The strain has unique, long, hair-like rod morphological features and exhibits strong degradation activity toward crystalline chitin under thermophilic conditions. Growth of the novel strain was observed at 45–65 °C (optimum, 55 °C) and pH 6.5–7.5 (optimum, pH 7.0). In addition to chitin, the strain utilized several other carbon sources, including N-acetylglucosamine, glucose, galactose, mannose, maltose, cellobiose, fructose and sucrose. The end products of chitin degradation were acetate, lactate, H2 and CO2. Phylogenetic tree analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed a clear affiliation of the proposed bacterium to the phylum Firmicutes ; the most closely related species were Hydrogenispora ethanolica LX-BT and Desulfotomaculum thermobenzoicum DSM6193T with similarities of 90.4 and 87.8 %, respectively. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 52.1 mol%. The average nucleotide identity and digital DNA–DNA hybridization values between the genomes of UUS1-1T and H. ethanolica LX-BT were 65.5 and 21.0 %, respectively. The cellular fatty acid composition of the strain was C16 : 0, anteiso-C15 : 0, C14 : 0, C12 : 0 3-OH and dimethyl acetal-C13 : 0. Based on phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genotypic analysis, strain UUS1-1T represents a novel genus and species, for which the name Capillibacterium thermochitinicola gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is UUS1-1T (=JCM 33882T=DSM 111537T). %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/ijsem/10.1099/ijsem.0.004693