Sabri M. Naser,  Marc Vancanneyt, Evelyne De Graef, Luc A. Devriese,  Cindy Snauwaert, Karen Lefebvre, Bart Hoste, Pavel Švec, Annemie Decostere, Freddy Haesebrouck & Jean Swings

The taxonomic position of strain LMG 13590T, originally isolated from dog faeces and classified as Enterococcus dispar in the BCCM/LMG Bacteria Catalogue, was reinvestigated. This strain and twelve recent isolates from faecal samples of healthy dogs occupied a clearly separate position when investigated with multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) of the genes encoding for the alpha subunit of ATP synthase (atpA), RNA polymerase alpha subunit (rpoA), and phenylalanyl-tRNA synthase (pheS). The 16S rRNA gene sequence of one representative strain showed highest similarities in a range of 98 to 99% with E. dispar LMG 13521T, Enterococcus canis 12316T and Enterococcus asini LMG 18727T. A further polyphasic taxonomic study based on whole-cell protein fingerprinting, DNA-DNA hybridization and biochemical features demonstrated that the thirteen enterococcal dog faecal strains represent a single, novel Enterococcus species for which the name Enterococcus canintestini sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is LMG 13590T (= CCM 7285T)