Abstract
Three strains of a hitherto unknown, Gram-negative, anaerobic coccus were isolated from human samples. At the phenotypic level, the isolates displayed all the characteristics of bacteria belonging to the genus Veillonella . Sequence analysis revealed that the three strains shared >99·5 % similarity in 16S rDNA sequence and >98·4 % similarity in dnaK sequence. The three unknown strains formed a separate subclade that was clearly remote from Veillonella species of human and animal origin. Based on these results, the three strains were considered to represent a novel species within the genus Veillonella , for which the name Veillonella montpellierensis is proposed. The type strain of the species is ADV 281.99 T (=CIP 107992 T =CCUG 48299 T ).