Pontibacter oryzae sp. nov., a carotenoid-producing species isolated from a rice paddy field

A taxonomic study using a polyphasic approach was performed on a Gram-stain negative, red-pink, aerobic, non-motile, asporogenous, rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain KIRAN^T, isolated from soil collected from a rice paddy field. The 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain KIRAN^T is phylogenetically related to Pontibacter actiniarum KMM 6156^T, Pontibacter korlensis X14-1^T, Pontibacter odishensis JC130^T, Pontibacter litorisediminis YKTF-7^T and Pontibacter aurantiacus NP1^T (97.6, 97.5, 97.3, 97.3 and 96.7% sequence similarity, respectively). The major fatty acids of strain KIRAN^T were identified as iso-C_15:0, iso-C_15:0 3-OH and summed feature 4. The predominant menaquinone was identified as MK-7. The polar lipid profile was found to consist of phosphatidylethanolamine, four unidentified phospholipids, an unidentified glycolipid, an unidentified aminolipid and four unidentified lipids. The genome of strain KIRAN^T has a G + C content of 48.3 mol%. The in silico DNA–DNA hybridization and average nucleotide identity values between strain KIRAN^T and the closely related strains P. actiniarum KMM 6156^T and P. korlensis X14-1^T were 21.2%/21.8% and 76.4%/75.1%, respectively. On the basis of the data from phenotypic tests and genotypic differences between strain KIRAN^T and its close phylogenetic relatives, strain KIRAN^T is concluded to represent a new species belonging to the genus Pontibacter, for which the name Pontibacter oryzae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is KIRAN^T (= KACC 19815^T = JCM 32880^T).