Paenibacillus luteus sp. Nov., isolated from soil

A novel Gram-stain-positive, strictly aerobic, motile, spore-forming and rod-shaped bacterial strain, designated R-3^T, was isolated from a soil sample obtained from the shore of Lake Panyang, Sichuan Province, PR China. Strain R-3^T hydrolysed starch and casein. It could not assimilate D-glucose as a carbon source, or produce acid from D-glucose and L-arabinose. Phylogenetic, phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and molecular studies were performed on the new isolate. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain R-3^T was a member of the genus Paenibacillus, exhibiting the highest sequence similarity to Paenibacillus sinopodophylli TEGR-3^T (98.4 %). The organism grew at 4–38^° C (optimum, 28–30^° C), at pH 6.0–10.0 (pH 7.0–7.5) and with 0–2.5 % (w/v) NaCl (1 %). The predominant menaquinone was MK-7. Anteiso-C_{15: 0} (60.7 %) and C_{16: 0} (15.5 %) were the major fatty acids. The cellular polar lipids contained diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, three unidentified aminophospholipids and one unidentified phospholipid. The DNA G+C content of strain R-3^T was determined to be 47.0 mol%. The DNA–DNA relatedness between strain R-3^T and P. sinopodophylli TEGR-3^T was 21.2 %. Based on the results obtained in this study, strain R-3^T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Paenibacillus, for which the name Paenibacillus luteus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is R-3^T (=CGMCC 1.16135^T =KCTC 33912^T).