Altererythrobacter rhizovicinus sp. nov., isolated from rhizosphere soil of Haloxylon ammodendron

Abstract

A salt-tolerant, Gram-negative, rod-shaped and yellow-pigmented bacterium, designated strain AY-3R^T, was isolated from rhizosphere soil of a desert xerophyte, <i>Haloxylon ammodendron</i>, sampled at Badain Jaran Desert, Alxa region, Inner Mongolia, PR China. Growth of this strain was observed at 20-42 °C (optimum, 28-30 °C), at pH 6.0-9.0 (optimum, pH 6.0-7.0) and at 0-8 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 3 %). Results of phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain AY-3R^T was a member of the genus <i>Altererythrobacter</i>, with the highest similarity to <i>Altererythrobacter aerophilus</i> Ery1^T (97.6 %), followed by <i>Altererythrobacter xinjiangensis</i> S3-63^T (96.9 %). The predominant fatty acids (>10.0 %) were C_{18 : 1}ω7<i>c</i>, C_{17 : 1}ω6<i>c</i> and summed feature 3 (C_{16 : 1}ω7<i>c</i> and/or C_{16 : 1}ω6<i>c</i>). The major polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, sphingoglycolipid and one unknown polar lipid. The predominant respiratory quinone was ubiquinone-10. The G+C content of the genomic DNA of strain AY-3R^T was 66.3 mol%. On the basis of the data from this polyphasic taxonomic study, strain AY-3R^T represents a novel species of the genus <i>Altererythrobacter</i>, named <i>Altererythrobacter rhizovicinus</i> sp. nov. (=MCCC 1K03572^T=KCTC 72280^T).