Gracilibacillus xinjiangensis sp. nov., a new member of the genus Gracilibacillus isolated from Xinjiang region, China

A Gram-positive, endospore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium, designated isolate J2T was isolated from a soil sample from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. The isolate was observed to grow at 16–46 °C and pH 6.5–8.0. Chemotaxonomic analysis showed menaquinone-7 (MK-7) to be the major isoprenoid quinone; diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, one aminophospholipid, two phosphoglycolipids and one glycolipid as the major cellular polar lipids; and anteiso-C15:0, iso-C15:0, anteiso-C17:0 and C16:0 as the major fatty acids. Comparative analyses of the 16S rRNA gene sequence showed that strain J2T is most closely related to Gracilibacillus ureilyticus (with 98.8 % similarity), Gracilibacillus dipsosauri (97.2 %), Gracilibacillus quinghaiensis (97.1 %) and Gracilibacillus thailandensis (97.0 %). The DNA–DNA reassociation values between strain J2T and G. ureilyticus MF38T, G. dipsosauri DD1T, G. quinghaiensis YIM-C229T and G. thailandensis TP2-8T were 29.8 ± 3.7, 23.0 ± 3.5, 15.8 ± 4.9 and 15.9 ± 5.0 %, respectively. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain J2T was determined to be 36.5 mol%. Based on these data, strain J2T is considered as a novel species of the genus Gracilibacillus, for which the name Gracilibacillusxinjiangensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type species is J2T (= CGMCC 1.12449T = JCM 18859T).