%0 Journal Article %A Shimizu, Satoru %A Ueno, Akio %A Naganuma, Takeshi %A Kaneko, Katsuhiko %T Methanosarcina subterranea sp. nov., a methanogenic archaeon isolated from a deep subsurface diatomaceous shale formation %D 2015 %J International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, %V 65 %N Pt_4 %P 1167-1171 %@ 1466-5034 %R https://doi.org/10.1099/ijs.0.000072 %I Microbiology Society, %X A methanogenic archaeon, strain HC-2T, was isolated from a deep diatomaceous shale formation. The strain grew on methanol, monomethylamine, dimethylamine, trimethylamine and dimethylsulphide, but not on acetate, H2/CO2, formate, 2-propanol, 2-butanol or cyclopentanol. Cells were Gram-stain-negative, non-motile, and coccus-like, 0.9–1.4 µm in diameter, and occurred singly, in pairs, or as aggregates. The strain grew at 10–40 °C (optimum 35 °C), pH 5.9–7.4 (optimum pH 6.6–6.8) and in 0–0.6 M NaCl (optimum 0.1–0.2 M). The genomic DNA G+C content was 41.5 mol% and the 16S rRNA gene sequence was closely related to those of Methanosarcina lacustris DSM 13486T (99.1 %) and Methanosarcina siciliae DSM 3028T (98.3 %). Values for DNA–DNA hybridization with these strains were less than 30 %. The phenotypic and phylogenetic features of HC-2T indicate that it represents a novel species of the genus Methanosarcina , for which the name Methanosarcina subterranea sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HC-2T ( = DSM 22503T = JCM 15540T = NBRC 102578T). %U https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/ijsem/10.1099/ijs.0.000072