Apilactobacillus, Zheng & Wittouck & Salvetti & Franz & Harris & Mattarelli & O’Toole & Pot & Vandamme & Walter & Watanabe & Wuyts & Felis & Gänzle & Lebeer, 2020

Zheng, Jinshui, Wittouck, Stijn, Salvetti, Elisa, Franz, Charles M. A. P., Harris, Hugh M. B., Mattarelli, Paola, O’Toole, Paul W., Pot, Bruno, Vandamme, Peter, Walter, Jens, Watanabe, Koichi, Wuyts, Sander, Felis, Giovanna E., Gänzle, Michael G. & Lebeer, Sarah, 2020, A taxonomic note on the genus Lactobacillus: Description of 23 novel genera, emended description of the genus Lactobacillus Beijerinck 1901, and union of Lactobacillaceae and Leuconostocaceae, International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 70 (4), pp. 2782-2858 : 2842

DESCRIPTION OF APILACTOBACILLUS GEN. NOV.

Apilactobacillus (A.pi.lac.to.ba.cil'lus. L. fem. n. apis bee; N.L. masc. n. Lactobacillus a bacterial genus name; N.L. masc. n. Apilactobacillus a lactobacillus from bees).

Gram positive, rod-shaped, heterofermentative. Growth is generally observed in the range of 15–37 °C; many strains grow at acidic conditions below pH 3.0. Strains in the genus have small genomes ranging from 1.42 Mbp for Apilactobacillus kosoi to 1.58 Mbp for Apilactobacillus quenuiae ; the mol% G+C content of DNA ranges from 30.5 to 36.4. All strains in the genus convert fructose to mannitol; strains in the genus typically ferment very few carbohydrates including the pollen and bee-associated carbohydrates fructose, glucose, and sucrose but not maltose or pentoses. Comparable to Fructilactobacillus , Apilactobacillus has an insect-associated lifestyle and occurs on flowers, which serve as hub for dispersal of lactobacilli, and insects [ 320]. In contrast to Fructilactobacillus , Apilactobacillus has adapted to bees including honeybees ( A. apinorum , A. kunkeei ) and wild bees ( A. timberlakei , A. micheneri , A. quenuiae ). In the bee and bumblebee gut, Apilactobacillus is associated with its homofermentative sister genus Bombilactobacillus .

A phylogenetic tree on the basis of 16S rRNA genes of all species in the genus Apilactobacillus is provided in Figure S6R .

The type species of the genus is Apilactobacillus kunkeei comb. nov. Apilactobacilus was previously referred to as L. kunkeei group.

Figures

Fig. 6. Gene family presence/absence patterns in Lactobacillaceae and Leuconostocaceae. Each column represents a gene family presence/absence pattern in species of Lactobacillaceae and Leuconostoaceae, where presence is indicated with a dot. The absolute number of gene families that conform to each pattern is visualized in the marginal bar plot at the top. Separations between phylogroups are indicated with horizontal black lines. We defined genes that were present in all genomes of a clade and in none of the genomes outside of that clade as ‘signature genes’ (dark blue); other genes are shown in light blue. Only presence/absence patterns followed by four or more gene families are shown. Patterns of presence in a single species or all species are not shown. Unassigned species are clusters of closely related genomes which could not be assigned to a known species due to low whole-genome similarity to a type strain and/or low 16S rRNA similarity to a type strain.