Taxonomic, metabolic traits and species description of aromatic compound degrading Indian soil bacterium Pseudomonas bharatica CSV86T.

ABSTRACT

A soil bacterium, strain CSV86T isolated from a petrol station in Bangalore, India displays a unique carbon source utilization hierarchy with preferential utilization of various genotoxic aromatic compounds over glucose. Cells were Gram-negative, motile rods, oxidase- and catalase-positive. Strain CSV86T possess a 6.79 Mb genome with 62.72 G + C mol%. 16S rRNA gene phylogeny relates strain CSV86T to the genus Pseudomonas, with highest similarity to Pseudomonas japonica WLT (99.38%). Multi-locus sequence analyses of gyrB-rpoB-rpoD-recA and 33 ribosomal proteins (rps) displayed overall low similarities to its phylogenetic relatives with poor similarity score (6%). Average nucleotide identity (ANI) and in-silico DNA-DNA hybridization (DDH) showed poor (87.11% and 33.2%, respectively) genomic relatedness of strain CSV86T to its closest relatives, indicating genomic distinctiveness. The major cellular fatty acids were 160, 170cyclo, summed-feature-3 (161ω7c/161ω6c) and -8 (181ω7c). Further, differential abundance of 120, 100 3-OH and 120 3-OH and phenotypic differences distinguished strain CSV86T from closest relatives, hence designated as Pseudomonas bharatica. The unique aromatic degradation ability, resistance to heavy metals, efficient nitrogen-sulfur assimilation, beneficial eco-physiological traits (production of indole acetic acid, siderophore and fusaric acid efflux) and plasmid-free genome suggest strain CSV86T to be a model organism for bioremediation and ideal host for metabolic engineering.