A facultative heterotrophic strain (DS-0205) was isolated from a deep-sea sediment sample collected at a depth of 5.2 km in the eastern Pacific Ocean,China. Strain DS-0205 is motile helmet-like single cell or pairs,forming hemisphere with the center sunken of variable size. It has a widespread carbon source and nitrogen source,including agarose,citric acid,salicin,D-glucitol nitrate,sodium nitrite and ethylamine. It can grow in the following environment:temperature 4-37 ℃,pH 2.0-12.0,tolerance to NaCl≤15%. Two phylogenetic trees,one based on the ITS and 5.8S rRNA sequences and the other based on the 18S rRNA sequences,unite strain DS-0205(=JCM 0205) to the type strain of Rhodosporidium diobovatum JCM 3787 through a considerable evolutionary distance. These results suggest that strain DS-0205 is a new strain of the Rhodosporidium diobovatum.
