Moniliella aeria sp. nov., a novel yeast isolated from the air of a Wuliangye baijiu-making workshop

During an investigation of the diversity of airborne yeasts in a famous Chinese baijiu fermentation workshop, two yeast strains were isolated from the air of the Wuliangye 501# baijiu-making workshop in Yibin, Sichuan Province, PR China and subjected to taxonomic analysis. The results of phylogenetic analysis of two regions of the rRNA gene cluster, the D1/D2 domains of the large subunit (LSU) rRNA gene and the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, indicated that these strains represented a novel species of the genus Moniliella distinct from closely related species. The similarity between the novel species and the most closely related known species, Moniliella dehoogii, was 94.1 % for the D1/D2 LSU rRNA gene (30 substitutions and 12 indels out of 556 bp) and 95.6 % for the ITS region (9 substitutions and 6 indels out of 475 bp). In contrast with M. dehoogii, this novel species was able to assimilate d-ribose, l-arabinose, d-arabinose, cellobiose, d-glucono-1,5-lactone, dl-lactate, citrate, 1,2-propanediol, 2,3-butanediol and ethanol but was unable to ferment raffinose or assimilate inulin. On the basis of the results of phylogenetic analysis and the physiological characteristics, these investigated strains represent a novel species of the genus Moniliella, for which the name Moniliella aeria sp. nov. is proposed. Its holotype is CGMCC 20235T, and the MycoBank number is MB840188.