*2.3. Chemotaxonomic Analysis of NEAU-SSA 1<sup>T</sup>*

Biomass for chemotaxonomic studies was prepared by growing the organisms in GY medium in shake flasks at 28 ◦C for 5 days. Cells were harvested using centrifugation, washed with distilled water, and freeze-dried. The isomer of diaminopimelic acid (DPA) in the cell wall hydrolysates was derivatized and analyzed using an HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography) method [21] with an Agilent TC-C18 Column (250 × 4.6 mm i.d. 5 μm; Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA) that had a mobile phase consisting of acetonitrile: 0.05 mol L−<sup>1</sup> phosphate buffer pH 7.2 (15:85, *v*/*v*) at a flow rate of 0.5 mL min<sup>−</sup>1. The peak detection used an Agilent G1321A fluorescence detector (Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA) with a 365 nm excitation and 455 nm longpass emission filters. The whole-cell sugars were analyzed according to the procedures developed by Lechevalier and Lechevalier [22]. The polar lipids were examined using two-dimensional TLC (Thin-Layer Chromatography) and identified using the method of Minnikin et al. [23]. Menaquinones were extracted from the freeze-dried biomass and purified according to Collins [24]. Extracts were analyzed using a HPLC-UV method [25] with an Agilent Extend-C18 Column (150 × 4.6 mm, i.d. 5 μm; Agilent Technologies, Santa Clara, CA, USA) at 270 nm. The mobile phase was acetonitrile-*iso*-propyl alcohol (60:40, *v*/*v*). To determine cellular fatty acid compositions, the strain NEAU-SSA 1<sup>T</sup> was cultivated in GY medium in shake flasks at 28 ◦C for 4 days. Fatty acid methyl esters were extracted from the biomass as described by Gao et al. [26] and analyzed using GC-MS according to the method of Xiang et al. [27].
