Bacillus cavernae sp nov isolated from cave soil

A Gram-stain-positive, spore-forming, motile, strictly aerobic, rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain L5(T), was isolated from soil of Tenglong cave, China. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain L5(T) was related most closely to Bacillus asahii MA001(T) (96.5 %) (the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity), Bacillus kribbensis BT080(T) (96.4 %) and Bacillus deserti ZLD-8(T) (96.2 %). The DNA G+C content of strain L5(T) was 45.6 mol%. The major menaquinone was MK-7. The major fatty acids were iso-C-14 : 0, anteiso-C-15 : 0 and iso-C-16 : 0, and the major polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylethanolamine. The diagnostic diamino acid in the cell-wall peptidoglycan was meso-diaminopimelic acid. In addition, strain L5(T) had different characteristics compared with the other Bacillus strains such as pink colony colour, low growth temperature and low nutrient requirement. The results indicate that strain L5(T) represents a novel species of the genus Bacillus, for which the name Bacillus cavernae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is L5(T) (=KCTC 33637(T)=CCTCC AB 2015055(T)).