Candida gosingica sp. nov., an anamorphic ascomycetous yeast closely related to Scheffersomyces spartinae.

During surveys on yeast diversity in forest soils from Taiwan and Thailand, ten yeast strains isolated from different samples were found to have similar molecular and physiological characteristics. Sequence analysis of small subunit (SSU) rDNA, the D1/D2 domain of large subunit (LSU) rDNA and internal transcribed spacer (ITS)-5.8S rDNA demonstrated that these strains were closely related to Scheffersomyces spartinae. The novel strains could be differentiated from S. spartinae by a 0.9  % sequence divergence (5 substitutions, 0 gaps) in the D1/D2 domain of LSU rDNA, a 1.5  % divergence (8 substitutions, 0 gaps) in the ITS-5.8S rDNA and a 0.7  % divergence (12 substitutions, 2 gaps) in the SSU rDNA. The novel strains also showed specific patterns of electrophoretic karyotypes that differed from that of S. spartinae. Therefore, a novel yeast species, Candida gosingica sp. nov., is proposed to accommodate these strains. The type strain SJ7S11(T) (=BCRC 23194(T)=CBS 11433(T)) was assigned and deposited in the Bioresource Collection and Research Center (BCRC), Food Industry Development and Research Institute, Hsinchu, Taiwan, and Centraalbureau voor Schimmelcultures (CBS), Utrecht, The Netherlands.