A novel strain, designated strain CSA42T, was isolated from the tomb of emperor Yang of Sui in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, China. Strain CSA42T was observed to be Gram-stain positive, strictly aerobic, rod-shaped, spore-forming and motile. The optimum conditions for growth were found to be 30 °C, pH 8.0 and without NaCl. Phylogenetic analysis, based on 16S rRNA gene sequences, revealed strain CSA42T to be closely related to Paenibacillus larvae DSM 7030T (94.7%), Paenibacillus doosanensis CAU 1055T (94.4%) and Paenibacillus gansuensis B518T (94.2%). The major cellular fatty acids were identified as anteiso-C15:0, anteiso-C17:0 and iso-C16:0. MK-8 was found to be the only respiratory quinone. The polar lipids were found to be comprised of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and two aminophospholipids. The cell wall peptidoglycan was found to contain meso-diaminopimelic acid and ribose as the only whole cell sugar. The genomic G+C content of strain CSA42T was determined to be 47.6 mol%. The low DNA-DNA relatedness values between strain CSA42T and the reference strain P. larvae KACC 11540T and many phenotypic properties support the classification of strain CSA42T (=KACC 18941T =CCTCC AB 2016201T) as the type strain of a novel species of the genus Paenibacillus, for which the name Paenibacillus tumbae sp. nov. is proposed. An emended description of the genus Paenibacillus based on the new data is also given.
Keywords: 16S rRNA gene sequence; Paenibacillus; Soil bacteria; Tomb.