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Rhodococcus biphenylivorans sp. nov., a polychlorinated biphenyl-degrading bacterium

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Abstract

A Gram-positive, aerobic, non-motile and rod–coccus shaped novel actinobacterial strain, designated as TG9T, was isolated from a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB)-contaminated sediment in Taizhou city, Zhejiang province, eastern China. The isolate was observed to grow at 10–45 °C (optimum 28–32 °C), pH 5.0–11.0 (optimum pH 7.0–8.0) and with 0–9.0 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 0–3.0 %). Comparison of the 16S rRNA gene sequences of strain TG9T and other members of the genus Rhodococcus showed that strain TG9T shared highest similarities with Rhodococcus pyridinivorans DSM 44555T (99.4 %), R. rhodochrous DSM 43241T (99.2 %), R. gordoniae DSM 44689T (99.2 %) and R. artemisiae DSM 45380T (98.2 %). However, low levels of DNA–DNA relatedness (15–48 %), which are below the 70 % limit for prokaryotic species identification, were obtained by DNA–DNA hybridization. Strain TG9T was found to contain meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid and arabinose and galactose in the whole-cell hydrolysate. Mycolic acids were found to be present. The major fatty acids were identified as C16:0, C16:1 ω7c and/or iso-C15:0 2-OH, 10-methyl C18:0 and C18:1 ω9c. The only menaquinone detected was MK-8 (H2). The major polar lipids detected were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, glycolipid and traces of some unknown lipids. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain TG9T was determined to be 62.8 %. The combined phenotypic and genotypic data show that the strain represents a novel species of the genus Rhodococcus for which the name Rhodococcus biphenylivorans sp. nov. is proposed, with the type strain TG9T (=CGMCC 1.12975T = KCTC 29673T = MCCC 1K00286T).

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2014QNA6012), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41271334), the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (2012AA06A203), and Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LR12D01001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Engineering, College of Environmental and Resource Sciences, Zhejiang University, Yuhangtang Road 866#, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Xiaomei Su, Yindong Liu, Muhammad Zaffar Hashmi, Jinxing Hu & Chaofeng Shen

  2. College of Geography and Environmental Science, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, China

    Linxian Ding

  3. College of Life Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310058, China

    Min Wu

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  1. Xiaomei Su
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  3. Muhammad Zaffar Hashmi
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  6. Min Wu
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Correspondence to Chaofeng Shen.

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Su, X., Liu, Y., Hashmi, M.Z. et al. Rhodococcus biphenylivorans sp. nov., a polychlorinated biphenyl-degrading bacterium. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 107, 55–63 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10482-014-0303-4

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