Isolation and identification of Rhodosporidium diobovatum DS-0205 from deep-sea sediment of eastern Pacific Ocean

A facultative heterotrophic strain (DS-0205) was isolated from a deep-sea sediment sample collected at a depth of 5.2 km in the eastern Pacific Ocean, China. Strain DS-0205 is motile helmet-like single cell or pairs, forming hemisphere with the center sunken of variable size. It has a widespread carbon source and nitrogen source, including agarose, citric acid, salicin, D-glucitol nitrate, sodium nitrite and ethylamine. It can grow in the following environment: temperature 4–37 °C, pH 2.0–12.0, tolerance to NaCl?15%. Two phylogenetic trees, one based on the ITS and 5.8S rRNA sequences and the other based on the 18S rRNA sequences, unite strain DS-0205(=JCM 0205) to the type strain of Rhodosporidium diobovatum JCM 3787 through a considerable evolutionary distance. These results suggest that strain DS-0205 is a new strain of the Rhodosporidium diobovatum.