Cohnella arctica sp. nov., isolated from Arctic tundra soil.

A psychrotolerant Gram-reaction-negative, rod-shaped and orange-pigmented bacterium, designated strain M9-62T, which was motile by means of peritrichous flagella, was isolated from tundra soil sampled near Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard Islands, Norway (78° N). Growth occurred at 4-30 °C (optimum, 25 °C) and pH 5.0-8.0 (optimum, pH 6.0-7.0). Analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain M9-62T placed it in the genus Cohnella; sequence similarities of the isolate with type strains of members of related genera ranged from 92.0 to 96.3 %. Strain M9-62T contained anteiso-C15:0 (51.1 %), iso-C16:0 (7.5 %) and C16:0 (6.1 %) as the major cellular fatty acids and diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and lysyl-phosphatidylglycerol as the main polar lipids. The major respiratory quinone was MK-7 and the DNA G+C content was 50.3 mol%. On the basis of phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic data, strain M9-62T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Cohnella, for which the name Cohnella arctica sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is M9-62T (=CCTCC AB 2010228T=NRRL B-59459T).