Mycobacterium kiyosense sp. nov., a scotochromogenic slow-glowing species isolated from respiratory specimens

Scotochromogenic slow-growing mycobacteria were isolated from the sputum or bronchoalveolar lavage fluid of 12 patients in Japan. From a comparison of the whole-genome sequences, the representative strain IWGMT90018-18076^T and the unknown strains obtained from the patients were found to represent a novel species related to the Mycobacterium gordonae complex. The average nucleotide identity values of IWGMT90018-18076^T with Mycobacterium vicinigordonae, Mycobacterium paragordonae and M. gordonae were 86.7, 82.5 and 82.2 %, respectively. The genome size of the representative strain IWGMT90018-18076^T was approximately 6.3 Mbp, and the genomic DNA G+C content was 67.1 %. The major fatty acid methyl esters were C_{16 : 0} (37.71 %), C_{18 : 1}ω9c (29.5 %) and C_{16 : 1}ω7c (10.32 %). In this study, we performed phylogenetic analyses, physiological and biochemical characteristic tests, drug susceptibility tests and fatty acid profiling of the clinical isolates. On the basis of the results obtained, we propose that the unknown clinical isolates represent a novel species, 'Mycobacterium kiyosense sp. nov,' with the type strain being IWGMT90018-18076^T (=JCM 34837^T =KCTC 49725^T).