sp. nov., a thermophilic microbe isolated from Moutai-flavour Daqu.

Moutai-flavour Daqu is an important starter to support growth of microorganisms in the fermented process of Moutai-flavour liquor. A novel thermophilic microorganism, designated strain FBKL4.011, was isolated from Moutai-flavour Daqu samples collected from Guotai distillery in Renhuai, Guizhou province, south-west China. The strain could grow at 45-65 °C (optimum 45 °C). Based on polyphasic analysis, strain FBKL4.011 was affiliated to the genus . It formed abundant pale-yellow aerial and substrate mycelium, bearing single endospores (7.0-10.0 µm diameter) on branched long sporophores (5.0 µm diameter). The cell-wall peptidoglycan contained -diaminopimelic acid; ribose, glucose and mannose were the primary whole-cell sugars. The major fatty acids were iso-C, iso-C, anteiso-C and iso-C. The predominant menaquinone were MK-8 and MK-9. The polar phospholipids contained diphosphatidyl glycerol, phosphatidyl ethanolamine, one unidentified phospholipid and one unidentified lipid. The G+C content of the genome was 43.1 mol%. According to the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain FBKL4.011 was closely related to JCM 9688 (95.3 % sequence similarity), and other members within the family (less than 93.0 % sequence similarity). The DNA-DNA hybridisation data showed low relatedness between strain FBKL4.011 and JCM 9688, KCTC 9790, YIM 10002, RHA1(36.7±1.1 %, 30.0±1.2 %, 21.3±2.1 % % and 37.6±0.9 %, respectively). Based on data from the polyphasic analysis, strain FBKL4.011 is considered to represent a novel species of the genus , for which the name sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is FBKL4.011(=KCTC 43036=CICC 24504).