Corynebacterium antarcticum sp. nov., Corynebacterium marambiense sp. nov., Corynebacterium meridianum sp. nov., and Corynebacterium pygosceleis sp. nov., isolated from Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae).

A taxonomic study was conducted on 16 bacterial strains isolated from wild Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae) from Seymour (Marambio) Island and James Ross Island. An initial screening by repetitive sequence-based PCR fingerprinting divided the strains studied into four coherent groups. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences assigned all groups to the genus Corynebacterium and showed that Corynebacterium glyciniphilum and Corynebacterium terpenotabidum were the closest species with 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities between 95.4 % and 96.5 %. Further examination of the strains studied with ribotyping, MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, comprehensive biotyping and calculation of average nucleotide identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridisation values confirmed the separation of the four groups from each other and from the other Corynebacterium species. Chemotaxonomically, the four strains P5828, P5850, P6136, P7210 representing the studied groups were characterised by C and Cω9c as the major fatty acids, by the presence of meso-diaminopimelic acid in the peptidoglycan, the presence of corynemycolic acids and a quinone system with the predominant menaquinone MK-9(H). The results of this study show that the strains studied represent four new species of the genus Corynebacterium, for which the names Corynebacterium antarcticum sp. nov. (type strain P5850 = CCM 8835 = LMG 30620), Corynebacterium marambiense sp. nov. (type strain P5828 = CCM 8864 = LMG 31626), Corynebacterium meridianum sp. nov. (type strain P6136 = CCM 8863 = LMG 31628) and Corynebacterium pygosceleis sp. nov. (type strain P7210 = CCM 8836 = LMG 30621) are proposed.