Paenibacillus cavernae sp nov., isolated from soil of a natural cave

A Gram-reaction-variable, strictly aerobic, motile, rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain C4-5(T), was isolated from soil of a natural cave. Cells were oxidase- and catalase-positive and formed endospores in sporangia. The 16S rRNA gene sequence comparison showed that the organism formed a distinct clade within the genus Paenibacillus and was most closely related to Paenibacillus contaminans CKOBP-6(T) (=KCTC 13623(T)) (96.85 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity) followed by Paenibacillus doosanensis CAU 1005(T) (=KCTC 33036(T)) (94.82 %). The following chemotaxonomic features of strain C4-5(T) are typical for the genus Paenibacillus: meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid in the cell-wall peptidoglycan, MK-7 as the predominant menaquinone, the major fatty acids of anteiso-C-15 : 0, iso-C-16 : 0 and C-16 : 0 and the DNA G + C content of 54.8 mol%. The major polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and four unidentified aminophospholipids. The phenotypic and phylogenetic data presented support that strain C4-5(T) represents a novel species of the genus Paenibacillus, for which the name Paenibacillus cavernae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is C4-5(T) (=KCTC 33652(T) =DSM 100100(T)).