Bacillus koreensis sp. nov., a spore-forming bacterium, isolated from the rhizosphere of willow roots in Korea

Jee-Min Lim¹, Che Ok Jeon², Jae-Chan Lee¹, Yoon Jung Ju¹, Dong-Jin Park¹ and Chang-Jin Kim¹

Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, 52 Oeundong, Yusong, Daejeon 305-333, Republic of Korea

An endospore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium was isolated from the rhizosphere of willow roots in Korea. The bacterium, designated strain BR030^T, was a strictly aerobic, motile rod. The cell wall contained type A1 peptidoglycan with meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C_15:0, iso-C_15:0, iso-C_14:00 and iso-C_16:0. The major cellular phospholipids were phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and unknown phospholipids (PL1, PL2). The genomic DNA G+C content was 36 mol%. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence analyses showed that strain BR030T formed a distinct phyletic line within the genus Bacillus and was most closely related to Bacillus flexus DSM 1320T, with 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of 96·8 %. Sequence similarities to other type strains were lower than 96·2 %. On the basis of physiological and molecular properties, the isolate represents a novel species within the genus Bacillus, for which the name Bacillus koreensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is BR030T (=KCTC 3914T=DSM 16467T).

Keywords: Bacillus koreensis, spore-forming bacterium, rhizosphere, 16S Rrna, Bacillus flexus, meso-diaminopimelic acid, microorganisms,Taxonomy, Microbes.

E-mail: changjin@kribb.re.kr