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

A salt-tolerant, Gram-negative, rod-shaped and yellow-pigmented bacterium, designated strain AY-3RT, was isolated from rhizosphere soil of a desert xerophyte, Haloxylon ammodendron, 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-3RT was a member of the genus Altererythrobacter, with the highest similarity to Altererythrobacter aerophilus Ery1T (97.6 %), followed by Altererythrobacter xinjiangensis S3-63T (96.9 %). The predominant fatty acids (>10.0 %) were C18 : 1ω7c, C17 : 1ω6c and summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c). 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-3RT was 66.3 mol%. On the basis of the data from this polyphasic taxonomic study, strain AY-3RT represents a novel species of the genus Altererythrobacter, named Altererythrobacter rhizovicinus sp. nov. (=MCCC 1K03572T=KCTC 72280T).