Novel xylanase producing Bacillus strain X2: molecular phylogenetic analysis and its application for production of xylooligosaccharides.

A Bacillus strain X2 that produced extracellular endo-xylanase (GH 11) (EC: 3.2.1.8) was isolated from the soil of the Northeast India region. This aerobic culture was Gram positive and endospore forming. Chemotaxonomic characterization showed variance with the fatty acid profile of related species in the Bacillus subtilis group. In Bacillus strain X2, distinct occurrence of iso-C(14:0) lipids is absent in other related species. The 16S rRNA gene sequence homology showed 99% similarity with Bacillus subtilis subsp. inaquosorum. The phylogenetic analysis by the multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) of the nucleotide sequence of six concatenated genes (16S rRNA, groEL, gyrA, polC, purH and rpoB) resolved the taxonomic position of the Bacillus strain X2 in the Bacillus subtilis subsp. group. The MLSA showed that it is a member of a clade that includes Bacillus subtilis subsp. stercoris. In in silico DNA-DNA hybridization (DDH), the highest matching score was obtained with Bacillus subtilis subsp. stercoris (87%). The in silico DDH of the genome (G + C 43.7 mol %) shared 48.5%, with Bacillus subtilis subsp. inaquosorum. The MLSA phylogenetic tree and the highest degree of DNA hybridization, indicating that it belongs to the Bacillus subtilis subspecies stercoris.