[Study on reclassification of extremely thermoacidophilic archaea strain S5]

The further study on thermoacidophilic archaea strain S5, with has been identified as Sulfosphaerellus thermoacidophilum gen.nov.,sp.nov, has shown it was able to grow facultatively aerobically by means of two sulfur-metabolizing modes of chemolithotrophy which is the characteristic of Acidianus. And the 16SrRNA gene of strain S5 was amplified, cloned and sequenced, a phylogenetic tree was constructed on the 16SrRNA gene sequences. The tree clearly indicated that strain S5 formed the same lineage with Acidianus brierleyi. Thus strain S5 should be the member of Acidianus. However, there are only 44%, 22% and 23% genomic DNA similarity between S5 and A. brierleyi. A. infernus and A. ambivalens, respectively. And the G + C content of S5 DNA is 38%, which is 5% ~ 7% higher than the reported G + C contents of the other Acidianus species (31% or 32.7%) . In addition, strain S5 is a strictly chemolithoautotrophs, which is obviously different from facultative chemolithotrophs of A brierleyi. Based on the observed differences, strain S5 represents a new species within the genus Acidianus. A new species name, Acidianus tengchongenses, was proposed for it. The type strain is designated S5.