The purified amplicons were sequenced
using the 357F primer, and the resulting sequences compared
with those deposited in the GenBank (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/
BLAST/) and Ribosomal Database Project (http://rdp.cme.msu.edu/
index.jsp) databases. As reported elsewhere (Stackebrandt et al., 2002),
sequences sharing a percentage identity of 97% or higher to those in the
databases were considered to belong to the same species