Cryobacterium roopkundense sp. nov., a psychrophilic bacterium isolated from glacial soil.

Strain RuGl7(T) was isolated from a soil sample collected at the periphery of the glacial Lake Roopkund in the Himalayan mountain range, India. Cells of RuGl7(T) were Gram-positive, aerobic, rod-shaped, motile and grew optimally between 15 and 18 degrees C. Cells of RuGl7(T) contained 2,4-diaminobutyric acid in the cell-wall peptidoglycan and the major menaquinones were MK-10, MK-11 and MK-12. The polar lipids present were diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol and an unknown lipid and the major fatty acid was anteiso-C(15 : 0). Based on the above characteristics, strain RuGl7(T) was assigned to the genus Cryobacterium. Strain RuGl7(T) shared a 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of 97.0 and 99.0 % with Cryobacterium psychrotolerans JCM 13925( T) and Cryobacterium psychrophilum JCM 1463(T), respectively. However, DNA-DNA relatedness values between strain RuGl7(T) and C. psychrotolerans and C. psychrophilum were 28 and 23 %, respectively. Furthermore, strain RuGl7(T) exhibited several phenotypic and genotypic differences when compared with C. psychrotolerans , C. psychrophilum and Cryobacterium mesophilum. Based on these differentiating characteristics, strain RuGl7(T) was identified as a novel species of the genus Cryobacterium for which the name Cryobacterium roopkundense sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is RuGl7( T) (=DSM 21065(T)=JCM 15131(T)).