RESUMO
This work deals with the taxonomic study of 12 orange-pigmented bacteria isolated from permafrost sediments, rice plots, and soils contaminated with wastes from the chemical and salt industries, which were assigned to the genus Brevibacterium on the basis of phenotypic characteristics, as well as of some strains described previously as Brevibacterium linens. The study revealed three genomic species, whose members and the type strains of the closest species of Brevibacterium had DNA similarity levels between 24 and 59%. The strains of the genomic species differed from each other and from the known species of Brevibacterium in some physiological and biochemical characteristics, as well as in the sugar and polyol composition of their teichoic acids. The 16S rDNA sequence analysis confirmed the assignment of the environmental isolates to the genus Brevibacterium and showed the phylogenetic distinction of the three genomic species. The results obtained in this study allow three new Brevibacterium species to be described: Brevibacterium antiquum (type strain VKM Ac-2118T = UCM Ac-411T), Brevibacterium aurantiacum (type strain VKM Ac-2111T = NCDO 739T = ATCC 9175T), and Brevibacterium permense (type strain VKM Ac-2280T = UCM Ac-413T).
