Starmerella caucasica sp nov., a novel anamorphic yeast species isolated from flowers in the Caucasus

Taxonomic analysis of budding yeast strains isolated from flowers of Wisteria sinensis (Fabales, Fabaceae) abundantly visited by flying insects, mainly bees in city parks of Baku is described. The isolates forming slightly pink colonies and propagating by budding represent a hitherto unknown yeast species for which the name Starmerella caucasica is proposed. The sequences of the D1/D2 domains of the large subunit rRNA genes and the ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 regions were highly similar in the isolates and indicated a close relationship with Candida kuoi and Starmerella bombicola in the phylogenetic analysis. S. caucasica can be separated from these species by its growth on glucosamine and D-tryptophan, in vitamin-free medium and at 37 degrees C, and its inability to grow on citrate, ethylamine, cadaverine and in media supplemented with 0.01% of cycloheximide. The type strain is 11-1071.1(T). It has been deposited in Centralbureau voor Schimmelcultures (Utrecht, the Netherlands) as CBS 12650(T), the National Collection of Agricultural and Industrial Microorganisms (Budapest, Hungary) as NCAIM Y.02030(T) and the Culture Collection of Yeasts (Bratislava, Slovakia) as CCY 90-1-1(T). The GenBank accession numbers for nucleotide sequences of S. caucasica are JX112043 (D1/D2 domain of the 26S rRNA gene) and JX112044 (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2). Mycobank: MB 800536.