Planococcus soli sp. nov., isolated from antarctic soil.

A novel bacterial strain, designated C23T, was isolated from a soil sample obtained from King George Island, Antarctica. Phenotypic, phylogenetic, chemotaxonomic and molecular analyses were performed on the new isolate. Strain C23T formed orange colonies on agar plates and was Gram-stain-positive. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain C23T was a member of the genus Planococcus and was closely related to Planococcus salinarum DSM 23802T (98.5% sequence similarity), Planococcus halotolerans SCU63T (98.3%), Planomicrobium okeanokoites IFO 12526T (98.3%), Planococcus donghaensis DSM 22276T (98.3%) and Planococcus maitriensisi S1T (98.2%). This organism grew at 2-38 °C (optimum, 25-30 °C), pH 6.0-12.0 (optimum, pH 7.5) and 0-14% (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 2%). The predominant menaquinone was MK-8. The major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C15:0, iso-C14:0 and C16:1 ω7c alcohol. The whole genome DNA of C23T was deposited in the GenBank database under accession number WXYN00000000. According to the whole genome, the DNA G + C content of strain C23T was determined to be 46.8 mol%; the average nucleotide identity (ANI) of strain C23T and P. salinarum DSM 23802T, P. halotolerans SCU63T, P. okeanokoites IFO 12526T, P. donghaensis DSM 22276T and P. maitriensis S1T were 74.1%, 74.3%, 74.1%, 78.8 and 73.6%; the digital DNA-DNA hybridization (dDDH) values between strain C23T and the five closely related species were 19.7%, 19.6%, 19.5%, 22.4 and 18.6%; the average amino acid identity (AAI) values between strain C23T and the five closely related species were 73.9%, 74.5%, 74.4%, 84.6 and 74.5%. All data were below the threshold range for species determination. Based on the polyphasic taxonomic study, we considered that strain C23T represented a novel species of the genus Planococcus for which the name Planococcus soli sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is C23T (= KCTC 33644T = CGMCC 1.15115T).