Radiotolerant bacterium isolated from a radioactive waste basin.. Kineococcus radiotolerans SRS30216 = ATCC BAA-149

Kineococcus radiotolerans SRS30216. This organism is a coccoid bacterium originally isolated from a high-level radioactive waste cell at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina, USA, in 2002. This is the type strain of the species. Comparative functional genomic characterization of this species and other known radiotolerant bacteria such as Deinococcus radiodurans and Rubrobacter xylanophilus will shed light onto the strategies these bacteria use for survival in high radiation environments, as well as the evolutionary origins of radioresistance and their highly efficient DNA repair machinery.