The genus contains 4 species of coccus shaped species,[2] 2 are former members of the genus Streptococcus, which were transferred in 1995 to the newly coined genus Abiotrophia:[1]
A. adiacens ( (Bouvet etal. 1989) Kawamura etal. 1995; Latinfeminine gender adjective adiacens, adjacent, indicating that this organism can grow as satellite colonies adjacent to other bacterial growth.)
A. defectiva ( (Bouvet etal. 1989) Kawamura etal. 1995, comb. nov. (Type species of the genus).; Latinfeminine gender adjective defectiva, deficient.)[3]
In 2000, Collins and Lawsons further differentiated A. adiacens, A. balaenopterae and A. elegans from A. defectiva by placing them into the new genus Granulicatella.[7]
For the Human Microbiome Project (HMP), the genome of Abiotrophia defectiva ATCC 49176 has been sequenced (assembly) as it is a resident of human oral cavity and urogenital and intestinal tracts and is a cause of infective endocarditis,
showing it to have 3291 protein encoded in a 3.4774 Mbp genome with a GC content of 37.0%
[8]
Disease
Formerly classified as nutritionally variant streptococci, A. elegans had been identified as a cause of 1 to 2% of blood culture negative bacterial infective endocarditis.[9]