Rhizobium oryzicola sp. nov., potential plant-growth-promoting endophytic bacteria isolated from rice roots

Abstract

Bacterial strains ZYY136T and ZYY9 were isolated from surface-sterilized rice roots from a long-term experiment of rice–rice–Astragalus sinicus rotation. The 16S rRNA gene sequences of strains ZYY136T and ZYY9 showed the highest similarity, of 97.0  %, to Rhizobium tarimense PL-41T. Sequence analysis of the housekeeping genes recA, thrC and atpD clearly differentiated the isolates from currently described species of the genus Rhizobium. The DNA–DNA relatedness value between ZYY136T and ZYY9 was 82.3  %, and ZYY136T showed 34.0  % DNA–DNA relatedness with the most closely related type strain, R. tarimense PL-41T. The DNA G+C content of strain ZYY136T was 58.1 mol%. The major cellular fatty acids were summed feature 8 (C18 : 1ω7c and/or C18 : 1ω6c), C16 : 0 and C16 : 0 3-OH. Strains ZYY136T and ZYY9 could be differentiated from the previously defined species of the genus Rhizobium by several phenotypic characteristics. Therefore, we conclude that strains ZYY136T and ZYY9 represent a novel species of the genus Rhizobium, for which the name Rhizobium oryzicola sp. nov. is proposed (type strain ZYY136T = ACCC 05753T = KCTC 32088T).