No abstract

No abstract

The name Lactobacillus casei, although applied for half a century to a well-described, well-known, clearly defined bacterium, has not been validly published, hence it has no standing in nomenclature. However, according to the rules of the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (1 966), there are n o impediments to L. casei being proposed as a new combination. Therefore, recognizing the principle of stability in nomenclature, the authors propose Lactobacillus casei (Orla-Jensen) comb. nov. as the name of the organism described by von Freudenreich ( 1889-1890; 189 1) under the designation Bacillus a! and later named Streptobacterium casei by Orla-Jensen (1919). ATCC 393 (Streptobacterium casei No. 7 of Orla-Jensen) is designated as the neotype strain of Lactobacillus casei.

The original description (2) of Lactobacillus delbrueckii (Leichmann) Beijerinck 190 1 was confused with that of L. fermentum Beijerinck 190 1. Although Opinion 38 of the Judicial Commission of the International Committee on Systematic Bacteriology (1 6, 17) ,accepts L. delbrueckii as the type species, the status of L. fermenturn is unclear, and the name L. fermentum has probably not been validly published. To clarify matters, the synonomy and description of L. delbrueckii (neotype strain ATCC 9649) are herein up-dated; as a corollary, we request the Judicial Commission of the International Committee on Systematic Bacteriology to issue an Opinion conserving L. fermentum and associating its concept with the description of the herein designated neotype strain of L. fermentum, ATCC 1493 1. As a separate matter, a number of Lactobacillus species names have been erroneously attributed to Holland (74) A number of the presently recognized species in the genus Lactobacillus Beijerinck (2) do not have validly published names or lack type or neotype strains, or both. The purposes of this paper are (i) to review the names of these species and to propose new combinations where necessary, (ii) to list the objective (names based on the same type) and subjective (names based on different types) synonyms of these names, and (iii) to designate and describe type or neotype strains where indicated.For those names listed as subjective synonyms, t o our knowledge type or neotype strains have not been established. Therefore, the original descriptions serve as the types for these names. The subjective synonymies given in that which follows have been determined on the basis of a comparison of the original descriptions associated with the names cited as subjective synonyms with the type or neotype strain of the species under discussion. There is one exception, however. The original description of L. rudensis Davis and Mattick (1 2) does not appear t o be available. The subjective synonymy of this organism with L. brevis is based upon the later description of Davis and Mattick's organism by Breed and Pederson (9).Lactobacillus delbrueckii. Previously, Lactobacillus caucasicus Beijerinck 190 1 has been accepted as the type species of the genus Lactobacillus Beijerinck. This organism is not recognizable, and no strains are extant. This is 177