A report of 5 unrecorded bacterial species of the Deinococcus genus in Korea

Five bacterial strains designated DY37, BS333, JJ521, BM1, and DG13-2 were assigned to the genus Deinococcus were isolated from forest soil samples collected from Deogyusan, Busan, Changwon, and Seoul of South Korea. The isolates were Gram-staining negative or positive, and pale pink- or red-pigmented, short-rod shaped. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that strains DY37, BS333, JJ521, BM1, and DG13-2 were most closely related to Deinococcus aquatilis CCM 7524T (with 99.0% similarity), D. ficus CC-FR2- 10T (100.0%), D. grandis KS 0485T (99.2%), D. roseus TDMA- uv51T (98.9%), and D. yunweiensis YIM007T (100.0%), respectively. These 5 species have never been proposed in Korea; therefore 5 species of 1 genera in the family Deinococcaceae in the order Deinococcales within the class Deinococci are reported for proteobacterial species found in Korea.