Abstract
As part of the culturomics project aiming at describing the human microbiota, we report in this study the description of the new bacterial genus Raoultibacter gen. nov. that includes two new species, that is, R. massiliensis sp. nov. and R. timonensis sp. nov. The R. massiliensis type strain Marseille‐P2849T was isolated from the fecal specimen of a healthy 19‐year‐old Saudi Bedouin, while R. timonensis type strain Marseille‐P3277T was isolated from the feces of an 11‐year‐old pygmy female living in Congo. Strain Marseille‐P2849T exhibited 91.4% 16S rRNA sequence similarity with Gordonibacter urolithinfaciens, its phylogenetic closest neighbor with standing in nomenclature. As well, strain Marseille‐P3277T exhibited 97.96% 16S rRNA similarity with strain Marseille‐P2849T. Both strains were Gram‐positive, motile, nonspore‐forming rod and form transparent microcolonies on blood agar in both anaerobic and microaerophilic atmospheres. The genome sizes of strain Marseille‐P2849T and strain Marseille‐P3277T were 3,657,161 bp and 4,000,215 bp, respectively. Using a taxono‐genomic approach combining the phenotypic, biochemical, and genomic characteristics, we propose the genus Raoultibacter gen. nov., which contains strains Marseille‐P2849T (= CSUR P2849T, = DSM 103407T) and Marseille‐P3277T (=CCUG 70680T, =CSUR P3277T) as type strains of the species R. massiliensis sp. nov., and R. timonensis sp. nov., respectively.