''Corynebacterium uropygiale'' is a bacterium described in 2016 following thorough investigations using a polyphasic approach including MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, phylogeny of

16S rRNA 16S rRNA may refer to: * 16S ribosomal RNA 16 S ribosomal RNA (or 16 S rRNA) is the RNA component of the 30S subunit of a prokaryotic ribosome ( SSU rRNA). It binds to the Shine-Dalgarno sequence and provides most of the SSU structure. The g ...

and ''

rpoB The ''rpoB'' gene encodes the β subunit of bacterial RNA polymerase and the homologous plastid-encoded RNA polymerase (PEP). It codes for 1342 amino acids in ''E. coli'', making it the second-largest polypeptide in the bacterial cell. It is targe ...

'' genes and

DNA fingerprinting DNA profiling (also called DNA fingerprinting) is the process of determining an individual's DNA characteristics. DNA analysis intended to identify a species, rather than an individual, is called DNA barcoding. DNA profiling is a forensic tec ...

. To date, it has been regarded as

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

preen gland The uropygial gland, informally known as the preen gland or the oil gland, is a bilobed sebaceous gland possessed by the majority of birds used to distribute the gland's oil through the plumage by means of preening. It is located dorsally at the ...

secretions of healthy

turkeys The turkey is a large bird in the genus ''Meleagris'', native to North America. There are two extant turkey species: the wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') of eastern and central North America and the ocellated turkey (''Meleagris ocellat ...

(''Meleagris gallopavo'').Markus Santhosh Braun, Stefan Zimmermann, Maria Danner, Harun-or Rashid, Michael Wink, ''Corynebacterium uropygiale'' sp. nov., isolated from the preen gland of Turkeys (''Meleagris gallopavo''), Systematic and Applied Microbiology, Volume 39, Issue 2, March 2016, Pages 88-92, ISSN 0723-2020, https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.syapm.2015.12.001. It is member of the genus '' Corynebacterium'' and belongs to the phylum

Actinomycetota The ''Actinomycetota'' (or ''Actinobacteria'') are a phylum of all gram-positive bacteria. They can be terrestrial or aquatic. They are of great economic importance to humans because agriculture and forests depend on their contributions to s ...

. Although, a large number of

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometr ...

including corynebacteria have been reported as part of the normal

microbiome A microbiome () is the community of microorganisms that can usually be found living together in any given habitat. It was defined more precisely in 1988 by Whipps ''et al.'' as "a characteristic microbial community occupying a reasonably wel ...

of birds, ''C. uropygiale'' is the only member of the genus that has been recovered in preen gland secretions of birds. It is one of three bacterial species to have been found to colonize preen gland secretions of birds.

Culture conditions

''C. uropygiale'' grows on complex media supplemented with monounsaturated fatty acids (e. g.

lysogeny broth Lysogeny broth (LB) is a nutritionally rich medium primarily used for the growth of bacteria. Its creator, Giuseppe Bertani, intended LB to stand for lysogeny broth, but LB has also come to colloquially mean Luria broth, Lennox broth, life br ...

(LB) agar supplemented with 0.3% Tween-80). On such media, luxurious growth is obtained after 48 h of incubation at 37°C. ''C. uropygiale'' can also be grown on Columbia agar containing 5% sheep blood, but faint growth is obtained. ''C. uropygiale'' does not show significant growth on media, such as LB, tryptic-soy agar, or

Mueller–Hinton agar Mueller–Hinton agar is a microbiological growth medium that is commonly used for antibiotic susceptibility testing, specifically disk diffusion tests. It is also used to isolate and maintain ''Neisseria'' and ''Moraxella'' species. It typi ...

. The presence or absence of CO₂ does not influence growth characteristics.

Characteristics

''C. uropygiale'' is a

fastidious A fastidious organism is any organism that has complex or particular nutritional requirements. In other words, a fastidious organism will only grow when specific nutrients are included in its medium. The more restrictive term fastidious microorga ...

, club-shaped,

Gram-positive In bacteriology, gram-positive bacteria are bacteria that give a positive result in the Gram stain test, which is traditionally used to quickly classify bacteria into two broad categories according to their type of cell wall. Gram-positive bact ...

, rod that assembles in palisades and V-shaped patterns. They are not

acid fast Acid-fastness is a physical property of certain bacterial and eukaryotic cells, as well as some sub-cellular structures, specifically their resistance to decolorization by acids during laboratory staining procedures. Once stained as part of a s ...

and non spore-forming facultative

anaerobes An anaerobic organism or anaerobe is any organism that does not require molecular oxygen for growth. It may react negatively or even die if free oxygen is present. In contrast, an aerobic organism (aerobe) is an organism that requires an oxygenate ...

. Their cell walls contain mycolic acids.

G+C content G, or g, is the seventh letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''gee'' (pronounced ), plural ''gees''. History Th ...

accounts for 60.7 mol% in the

type strain The International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes (ICNP) formerly the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB) or Bacteriological Code (BC) governs the scientific names for Bacteria and Archaea.P. H. A. Sneath, 2003. A short hist ...

. The closest relative is ''C. spheniscorum'', which has been recovered from the

Magellanic penguin The Magellanic penguin (''Spheniscus magellanicus'') is a South American penguin, breeding in coastal Patagonia, including Argentina, Chile, and the Falkland Islands, with some migrating to Brazil and Uruguay, where they are occasionally seen a ...

(''Spheniscus magellanicus'').J. Goyache, A. I. Vela, M. D. Collins, C. Ballesteros, V. Briones, J. Moreno, P. Yorio, L. Dominguez, R. Hutson, J. F. Fernandez-Garayzabal Corynebacterium spheniscorum sp. nov., isolated from the cloacae of wild penguins Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol., 53 (2003), pp. 43–46.

Lipophilism

''C. uropygiale'' is capable of proliferating in lipid-rich environments, such as the preen gland. It uses the

fatty acids In chemistry, particularly in biochemistry, a fatty acid is a carboxylic acid with an aliphatic chain, which is either saturated and unsaturated compounds#Organic chemistry, saturated or unsaturated. Most naturally occurring fatty acids have an B ...

of its surroundings rather than synthesizing them by itself. ''C. uropygiale'' has adapted its

metabolism Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run c ...

to its

habitat In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...

, as it lost the ability to produce these fatty acids by itself. In terms of

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

, this saves energy and potentially increases fitness.

References

External links

Type strain of ''Corynebacterium uropygiale'' at Bac''Dive'' - the Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase
{{Taxonbar, from=Q28100506 Corynebacterium Bacteria described in 2016