Description of Tersicoccus phoenicis gen. nov., sp. nov. isolated from spacecraft assembly clean room environments

Parag Vaishampayan, Christine Moissl-Eichinger, Rüdiger Pukall, Peter Schumann, Cathrin Spröer, Angela Augustus, Anne Hayden Roberts, Greg Namba, Jessica Cisneros, Tina Salmassi, Kasthuri Venkateswaran

¹Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA

²Institute for Microbiology and Center, University of Regensburg, Universitaetsstr. 31, 93053 Regensburg, Germany

³Leibniz-Institute DSMZ – German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, Inhoffenstr. 7B, D-38124 Braunschweig, Germany

⁴Department of Biological Sciences, California State University Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90032, USA

Correspondence
Parag Vaishampayan vaishamp{at}jpl.nasa.gov

International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 2013; 63(Pt 7):2463–2471 · https://doi.org/10.1099/ijs.0.047134-0

Abstract

Two strains of aerobic, non-motile, Gram-reaction-positive cocci were independently isolated from geographically distinct spacecraft assembly clean room facilities (Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA and Centre Spatial Guyanais, Kourou, French Guiana). A polyphasic study was carried out to delineate the taxonomic identity of these two isolates (1P05MA^T and KO_PS43). The 16S rRNA gene sequences exhibited a high similarity when compared to each other (100 %) and lower than 96.7 % relatedness with Arthrobacter crystallopoietes ATCC 15481^T, Arthrobacter luteolus ATCC BAA-272^T, Arthrobacter tumbae DSM 16406^T and Arthrobacter subterraneus DSM 17585^T. In contrast with previously described Arthrobacter species, the novel isolates maintained their coccidal morphology throughout their growth and did not exhibit the rod–coccus life cycle typically observed in nearly all Arthrobacter species, except A. agilis. The distinct taxonomic identity of the novel isolates was confirmed based on their unique cell-wall peptidoglycan type (A.11.20; Lys-Ser-Ala₂) and polar lipid profile (presence of phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, an unknown phospholipid and two unknown glycolipids). The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 70.6 mol%. The novel strains revealed MK-9(H₂) and MK-8(H₂) as dominant menaquinones and exhibited fatty acid profiles consisting of major amounts of anteiso-C_15 : 0 and anteiso-C_17 : 0 and moderate amounts of iso-C_15 : 0 discriminating them again from closely related Arthrobacter species. Based on these observations, the authors propose that strains 1P05MA^T and KO_PS43 be assigned into a separate genus Tersicoccus gen. nov. For this new taxon, comprising strains 1P05MA^T and KO_PS43, we propose the name Tersicoccus phoenicis gen. nov., sp. nov. (the type species of Tersicoccus), represented by the type strain Tersicoccus phoenicis 1P05MA^T ( = NRRL B-59547^T = DSM 30849^T).