Deinococcus ficus sp. nov., isolated from the rhizosphere of Ficus religiosa L.

A pale-pink strain (CC-FR2-10T) from the rhizosphere of the sacred tree Ficus religiosa L. in Taiwan was investigated by using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. The cells were Gram-positive, rod-shaped and non-spore-forming. Phylogenetic analyses using the 16S rRNA gene sequence of the isolate indicated that the organism belongs to the genus Deinococcus, the highest sequence similarities being found with Deinococcus grandis (96.1 %), Deinococcus radiodurans (94.3 %), Deinococcus radiopugnans (93.2 %), Deinococcus indicus (93.0 %), Deinococcus proteolyticus (92.5 %), Deinococcus murrayi (92.4 %) and Deinococcus geothermalis (90.7 %). The DNA-DNA relatedness with respect to D. grandis DSM 3963T was 17.9 %. Chemotaxonomic data revealed that strain CC-FR2-10T contains only menaquinone MK-8 as the respiratory quinone, unknown phosphoglycolipids as the predominant polar lipids and 16 : 1omega7c, 17 : 1omega8c and 17 : 1omega9c iso as the predominant fatty acids. The biochemical and chemotaxonomic properties demonstrate that strain CC-FR2-10T represents a novel species, for which the name Deinococcus ficus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is CC-FR2-10T (=CCUG 51391T [corrected] = CIP 108832T).