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Thauera sinica sp. nov., a phenol derivative-degrading bacterium isolated from activated sludge

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Abstract

A bacterial strain, K11T, capable of degrading phenol derivatives was isolated from activated sludge of a sewage treatment plant in China. This strain, which can degrade more than ten phenol derivatives, was identified as a Gram-stain negative, rod-shaped, asporogenous, facultative anaerobic bacterium with a polar flagellum. The strain was found to grow in tryptic soy broth in the presence of 0–2.5% (w/v) NaCl (optimum 0–1%), at 4–43 °C (optimum 30–35 °C) and pH 4.5–10.5 (optimum 7.5–8). Comparative analysis of nearly full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that this strain belongs to the genus Thauera. The 16S rRNA gene sequence was found to show high similarity (97.5%) to that of Thauera chlorobenzoica 3CB-1T, with lesser similarity to other recognised Thauera strains. The G+C content of the DNA of the strain was determined to be 67.8 mol%. The DNA–DNA hybridization value between K11T and Thauera aromatica DSM6984T was 10.4 ± 4.5%. The genomic OrthoANI values of K11T with the other nine type strains of genus Thauera were less than 81.1%. Chemotaxonomic analysis of strain K11T revealed that Q-8 is the predominant quinone; the polar lipids contain phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, two unidentified phospholipids and five uncharacterised lipids; the major cellular fatty acid was identified as summed feature 3 (C16:1 ω7c and/or iso-C15:0 2-OH; 45.9%), followed by C16:0 (20.5%) and C18:1 ω7c (15.8%). Based on the phenotypic and phylogenetic evidence, DNA–DNA hybridisation, OrthoANI, chemotaxonomic analysis and results of the physiological and biochemical tests, a new species named Thauera sinica sp. nov. is proposed with strain K11T (= CGMCC 1.15731T = KACC 19216T) designated as the type strain.

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Acknowledgements

This research is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31400005 and No. 21473256) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China and the Key Research Project of Shandong Province (No. 2017GGX40114).

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  1. Nenghu Qiao and Lijun Xi have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing and Centre for Bioengineering and Biotechnology, College of chemical Engineering, China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao, 266580, China

    Nenghu Qiao, Lijun Xi, Jingjing Zhang, Dejian Liu, Baosheng Ge & Jianguo Liu

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  1. Nenghu Qiao
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  2. Lijun Xi
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Qiao, N., Xi, L., Zhang, J. et al. Thauera sinica sp. nov., a phenol derivative-degrading bacterium isolated from activated sludge. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 111, 945–954 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10482-017-0993-5

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