Phycicoccus cremeus sp. nov., isolated from forest soil, and emended description of the genus Phycicoccus

Abstract

A bacterial strain, designated V2M29T, was isolated from forest soil collected in the Changbai Mountains, Heilongjiang Province, China. Cells of strain V2M29Twere Gram-positive, rod-shaped (0.5–0.8 μm in diameter and 1.5–2.0 μm in length), strictly aerobic and non-motile. Colonies produced on R2A agar plates were creamy, smooth, circular and 0.3–0.8 mm in diameter. Strain V2M29Tgrew at 14–35 °C (optimum, 29 °C), at pH 4.1–10.0 (optimum, pH 7.0–8.0) and in the presence of 0–7.0 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 0–2.0 %). Strain V2M29Tcontained MK-8(H4) as the major respiratory quinone and iso-C15 : 0(20.9 %), iso-C16 : 0(18.5 %), C17 : 1ω8c(16.7 %) and 10-methyl-C17 : 0(9.2 %) as the major cellular fatty acids. The cell-wall peptidoglycan type was based onmeso-2,6-diaminopimelic acid and the acyl type of the muramic acid was acetyl. Diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol and six unknown glycolipids were the major polar lipids. The G+C content of the DNA was 72.0 mol% (Tm). 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated that strain V2M29Twas phylogenetically related to members of the genusPhycicoccus, with sequence similarities ranging from 96.6–97.8 %. The DNA–DNA relatedness values of strain V2M29TtoPhycicoccus dokdonensisDS-8TandPhycicoccus bigeumensisDSM 19264Twere 32.5±3.3 % and 29.2±2.3 %, respectively. Based on these results, it is concluded that strain V2M29Trepresents a novel species of the genusPhycicoccus, for which the namePhycicoccus cremeussp. nov. is proposed, with V2M29T(=CGMCC 1.6963T=NBRC 104261T) as the type strain.