TAXONOMIC STUDIES OF THE GENERA ACIDOMONAS, ACETOBACTER AND GLUCONOBACTER BY 5S RIBOSOMAL-RNA SEQUENCING

Ribosomal 5SRNA (rRNA) was isolated from 12 strains belonging to the genera Acidomonas, Acetobacter and Gluconobacter and sequenced. A dendrogram constructed from the data indicated that methylotrophic and nonmethylotrophic strains of the genus Acetobacter formed two separate clusters. The non-methylotrophic members of the genus Acetobacter were phylogenetically closer to Gluconobacter than to the methylotrophic strains of Acetobacter. The methylotrophic strains of Acetobacter were recovered as a clade with the type strain of Acidomonas methanolica. These data support an earlier proposal which reclassified methylotrophic strains of Acetobacter into the genus Acidomonas.