Kocuria himachalensis sp. nov., an actinobacterium isolated from the Indian Himalayas.

A reddish orange bacterium, strain K07-05(T), was isolated from soil during a study of the bacterial diversity of a cold desert of the Indian Himalayas and was studied by using a polyphasic approach. The organism had morphological and chemotaxonomic properties consistent with its classification in the genus Kocuria. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence showed that strain K07-05(T) was closely related to Kocuria rosea DSM 20447(T) and Kocuria polaris MTCC 3702(T) (98.1 and 97.8 % sequence similarity, respectively), whereas the sequence similarity values with respect to the other Kocuria species with validly published names were between 96.4 and 94.2 %. However, the genomic relatedness, as shown by DNA-DNA hybridization, of strain K07-05(T) and K. polaris MTCC 3702(T) is 49.5 % and that with K. rosea MTCC 2522(T) is 24.0 %. The DNA G+C content of the strain is 75.3 mol%. The above data in combination with the phenotypic distinctiveness of K07-05(T) clearly indicate that the strain represents a novel species, for which the name Kocuria himachalensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is K07-05(T) (=MTCC 7020(T)=DSM 44905(T)=JCM 13326(T)).