Halobasidium xiangyangense gen. nov., sp. nov., a new xylose-utilizing yeast in the family Cystobasidiaceae, isolated from the pickling sauce used to make Datoucai, a high-salt fermented food

In this study, we describe a new genus and species of yeast with high-salt tolerance. The strain was isolated from the pickling sauce used to make Datoucai, a traditional fermented food made from Brassica juncea in Xiangyang, China. Phylogenetic analysis of sequences from the D1/D2 region of the LSU rRNA gene and from the ITS region demonstrated that the strain, reference HBUAS51001 T , was most closely related to members of the genera Occultifur and Cystobasidium. However, the greatest similarities between the D1/D2 and ITS nucleotide sequences of strain HBUAS51001 T and the most closely related type strains from Occultifur and Cystobasidium were only 91 and 92 %, respectively. This suggests that strain HBUAS51001 T does not belong to any currently described species. Strain HBUAS51001 T grew readily on media in which xylose was the sole carbon source. The major ubiquinone was Q9. The genome of strain HBUAS51001 T was 42.42 Mb with a G+C content of 53.93 mol%. Three candidate genes associated with xylose metabolism were identified. On the basis of genotypic and phenotypic data, strain HBUAS51001 T can be considered as both a new species and a new genus, for which the name Halobasidium xiangyangense gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HBUAS51001 T (=KCTC27810 T =GDMCC 2.231 T =CCTCC AY 2018002 T ).