Hansschlegelia beijingensis sp. nov., an aerobic, pink-pigmented, facultatively methylotrophic bacterium isolated from watermelon rhizosphere soil

Xiao-lin Zou, Xiu-ai Li, Xu-Ming Wang, Qiang Chen, Miao Gao, Tian-lei Qiu, Jian-guang Sun, Jun-lian Gao

¹Beijing Agro-Biotechnology Research Center, Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry/Beijing Municipal Key Laboratory of Agricultural Gene Resources and Biotechnology, Beijing 100097, PR China

²Department of Microbiology, College of Resources and Environment Science, Sichuan Agricultural University, Ya’an 625014, PR China

³College of Life Science, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, PR China

⁴Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences/Ministry of Agriculture Key Laboratory of Crop Nutrition and Fertilization, Beijing 100081, PR China

Correspondence
Jun-lian Gao gaojunlian{at}baafs.net.cn Jian-guang Sun jgsun{at}caas.ac.cn

International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 2013; 63(Pt 10):3715–3719 · https://doi.org/10.1099/ijs.0.052308-0

Abstract

A novel Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, rod-shaped strain designated PG04^T was isolated from the rhizosphere of watermelon plants cultivated in Beijing, China. A polyphasic taxonomic study was performed on the new isolate. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity studies, isolate PG04^T belonged clearly to the genus Hansschlegelia and was most closely related to Hansschlegelia zhihuaiae (97.3 % similarity to the type strain). The predominant respiratory quinone was ubiquinone 10 (Q-10) and the polar lipid profile was composed of the major lipids diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylcholine. The major fatty acids were C_18 : 1ω7c (41.3 %), C_19 : 0 cyclo ω8c (30.6 %) and C_16 : 0 (19.1 %). The G+C content of the DNA was about 64.4 mol%. DNA–DNA hybridization experiments showed 34.4 % relatedness between strain PG04^T and H. zhihuaiae DSM 18984^T. The results of physiological and biochemical tests and differences in fatty acid profiles allowed clear phenotypic differentiation of strain PG04^T from the most closely related species in the genus, H. zhihuaiae. Strain PG04^T therefore represents a novel species within the genus Hansschlegelia, for which the name Hansschlegelia beijingensis sp. nov. is proposed, with the type strain PG04^T ( = DSM 25481^T = ACCC 05759^T).