Butyricicoccus pullicaecorum gen. nov., sp. nov., an anaerobic, butyrate-producing bacterium isolated from the caecal content of a broiler chicken

Five isolates that produced large amounts of butyrate were obtained in the course of a study on the butyrate-producing microbiota from the caecal content of a 4-week-old broiler chicken. The five isolates were virtually indistinguishable in biochemical and genetic terms, suggesting that they were derived from a single bacterial clone colonizing this habitat. A phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences demonstrated that the five isolates represented a unique lineage within the Clostridium leptum subgroup of the clostridia, with Eubacterium desmolans as the closest phylogenetic; neighbour (about 93 % similarity). These data indicate that the five novel isolates represent a single novel species within a novel genus, for which we propose the name Butyricicoccus pullicaecorum gen. nov., sp. nov. The type strain of Butyricicoccus pullicaecorum is 25-3(T) (=LMG 24109(T) =CCUG 55265(T)). The DNA G + C content of strain 25-3T was 54.5 mol%.