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. 2022 Aug 19;60(10):977–985. doi: 10.1007/s12275-022-2134-8

Phenotypic and genomic characteristics of Brevibacterium zhoupengii sp. nov., a novel halotolerant actinomycete isolated from bat feces

Yuyuan Huang 1, Lingzhi Dong 1,2, Jian Gong 1,2, Jing Yang 1,2,3, Shan Lu 1,2,3, Xin-He Lai 4, Dong Jin 1,2,3, Qianni Huang 1,5, Ji Pu 1, Liyun Liu 1, Jianguo Xu 1,2,3,6,7,✉
PMCID: PMC9390107  PMID: 35984616

Abstract

Two strictly aerobic, Gram-staining-positive, non-spore-forming, regular rod-shaped (approximately 0.7 × 1.9 mm) bacteria (HY170T and HY001) were isolated from bat feces collected from Chongzuo city, Guangxi province (22°20′54″N, 106°49′20″E, July 2011) and Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan province (25°09′10″N, 102°04′39″E, October 2013) of South China, respectively. Optimal growth is obtained at 25–28°C (range, 4–32°C) on BHI-5% sheep blood plate with pH 7.5 (range, 5.0–10.0) in the presence of 0.5–1.0% NaCl (w/v) (range, 0–15% NaCl [w/v]). The phylogenetic and phylogenomic trees based respectively on the 16S rRNA gene and 845 core gene sequences revealed that the two strains formed a distinct lineage within the genus Brevibacterium, most closely related to B. aurantiacum NCDO 739T (16S rRNA similarity, both 98.5%; dDDH, 46.7–46.8%; ANI, 91.9–92.1%). Strain HY170T contained MK-8(H2), diphosphatidylglycerol (DPG) and phosphatidylglycerol (PG), galactose and ribose as the predominant menaquinone, major polar lipids, and main sugars in the cell wall teichoic acids, respectively. The meso-diaminopimelic acid (meso-DAP) was the diagnostic diamino acid of the peptidoglycan found in strain HY170T. Anteiso-C15:0 and anteiso-C17:0 were the major fatty acids (> 10%) of strains HY170T and HY001, with anteiso-C17:1A predominant in strain HY170T but absent in strain HY001. Mining the genomes revealed the presence of secondary metabolite biosynthesis gene clusters encoding for non-alpha poly-amino acids (NAPAA), ectoine, siderophore, and terpene. Based on results from the phylogenetic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic analyses, the two strains could be classified as a novel species of the genus Brevibacterium, for which the name Brevibacterium zhoupengii sp. nov. is proposed (type strain HY170T = CGMCC 1.18600T = JCM 34230T).

Supplemental material for this article may be found at 10.1007/s12275-022-2134-8.

Keywords: Brevibacterium zhoupengii, bat, carotenoid, Mrp gene, halotolerant

Electric Supplementary Material

Appendix (2.2MB, pdf)

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from National Key R&D Program of China (2019YFC1200501 and 2019YFC1200505) and Research Units of Discovery of Unknown Bacteria and Function (2018RU010).

We would like to express our appreciation to Professors Zhengli Shi and Peng Zhou (Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for sharing the bat fecal samples.

Ethical Statement

The ethical practice was approved by Ethical Committee of the National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (NO: ICDC-2016004).

Footnotes

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

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