Elusimicrobium minutum

Elusimicrobium minutum is an ultramicrobacterium and first accepted member to be cultured of a major bacterial lineage previously known only as candidate phylum Termite Gut 1 (TG1), which has accordingly been renamed phylum Elusimicrobiota. It was isolated in the laboratory of Andreas Brune at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, from the scarab beetle. It is a mesophilic, obligately anaerobic ultramicrobacterium with a gram-negative cell envelope. Cells are typically rod shaped, but cultures are pleomorphic in all growth phases (0.3 to 2.5 μm long and 0.17 to 0.3 μm wide). The isolate grows heterotrophically on sugars and ferments D-galactose, D-glucose, D-fructose, D-glucosamine, and N-acetyl-D-glucosamine to acetate, ethanol, hydrogen, and alanine as major products but only if amino acids are present in the medium