Complete Genome Sequence of the Dairy Isolate Streptococcus

The species Streptococcus macedonicus is associated with the food environment, especially with fermented dairy products. Here we present the complete 2.1-Mb genome sequence of strain ACA-DC 198, which was isolated from naturally fermented Greek kasseri cheese. Streptococcus macedonicus is an intriguing streptococcal species,since its most frequent source of isolation to date is fermented foods, mainly of dairy origin (5). Within the genus Streptococcus, only Streptococcus thermophilus is considered nonpathogenic, due to its adaptation to the milk environment (3, 8). Even though S. macedonicus has been shown to possess important (bio)techno-logical features similar to those of S. thermophilus (5), it belongs to the Streptococcus bovis/equinus complex (13). It has been proposed that S. macedonicus is a subspecies of S. gallolyticus, along with S. gallolyticus subsp. gallolyticus (formerly S. bovis biotype I) and Streptococcus pasteurianus (formerly S. bovis biotype II.2) (13). This classification scheme is not universally accepted (15); how-ever, there is no doubt that S. macedonicus is phylogeneticall