A novel actinobacterial strain, T , was isolated from the vaginal fluid of a Korean female and was characterized by a polyphasic approach. The strain was a facultatively anaerobic, Gram-stain-positive, non-spore-forming, non-motile, catalase-positive and oxidase-negative short rod. Colonies were creamy white, of low convexity and 1-2 mm in diameter after growth on DSM 92 agar plates at 37 8C for 2 days. The most closely related strains were Dermabacter hominis DSM 7083 T and Helcobacillus massiliensis 6401990 T (98.3 and 96.3 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, respectively). The isolate grew optimally at 37 8C and pH 7 in the presence of 0.5 % (w/v) NaCl. The cell-wall peptidoglycan contained meso-diaminopimelic acid and the cell-wall hydrolysates contained ribose, galactose and glucose. The DNA G+C content was 62.6 mol% and the mean DNA-DNA relatedness value of the isolate to D. hominis DSM 7083 T was 31.1¡3.0 % (reciprocal: 48.2¡5.3 %). The major cellular fatty acids (.10 %)were anteiso-C 17 : 0 , anteiso-C 15 : 0 and iso-C 16 : 0 , and the menaquinones were MK-9, MK-8 and MK-7. The polar lipid profile of strain AD1-86 T consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, two aminolipids and a glycolipid. Data from this polyphasic study indicate that strain AD1-86 T represents a novel species of the genus Dermabacter, for which the name Dermabacter vaginalis sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is AD1-86 T (5KCTC 39585 T 5DSM 100050 T ).