In this study, we describe a new genus and species of yeast with high-salt tolerance. The strain was isolated from the pickling sauce used to make Datoucai, a traditional fermented food made from Brassica juncea in Xiangyang, China. Phylogenetic analysis of sequences from the D1/D2 region of the LSU rRNA gene and from the ITS region demonstrated that the strain, reference HBUAS51001T, was most closely related to members of the genera Occultifur and Cystobasidium. However, the greatest similarities between the D1/D2 and ITS nucleotide sequences of strain HBUAS51001T and the most closely related type strains from Occultifur and Cystobasidium were only 91 and 92 %, respectively. This suggests that strain HBUAS51001T does not belong to any currently described species. Strain HBUAS51001T grew readily on media in which xylose was the sole carbon source. The major ubiquinone was Q9. The genome of strain HBUAS51001T was 42.42 Mb with a G+C content of 53.93 mol%. Three candidate genes associated with xylose metabolism were identified. On the basis of genotypic and phenotypic data, strain HBUAS51001T can be considered as both a new species and a new genus, for which the name Halobasidium xiangyangense gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HBUAS51001T (=KCTC27810T=GDMCC 2.231T=CCTCC AY 2018002T).
Keywords: draft genome sequence; phylogenetic analysis; xylose metabolism.