Paenibacillus rhizolycopersici sp. nov., an oligotrophic bacterium isolated from a tomato plant in China.

A Gram-positive, rod-shaped, motile, endospore-forming strain, DXFW5, was isolated from the rhizosphere soil of tomato. Strain DXFW5 grew at 20-50 °C (optimum, 25-37 °C), pH 5-8 (optimum, pH 7) and in the presence of 3 % NaCl. It was positive for catalase and oxidase. Phylogenetic analysis using 16S rRNA gene sequences showed this strain was most closely related to DSM 16943 (98.0 %) and DSM 22255 (97.4 %). The DNA G+C content was 52.9 mol%. The digital DNA-DNA hybridization values between strain DXFW5 and DSM 16943, DSM 22255 and DSM 24 were 33.1, 24.9 and 21.2 %, respectively. The average nucleotide identity values between strain DXFW5 and DSM 16943 DSM 22255 and DSM 24 were 86.93, 81.77 and 75.98 %, respectively. The major fatty acids were anteiso-C (55.1 %), iso-C (13.2 %) and C (10 %). The polar lipids of strain DXFW5 consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine two unidentified phospholipids and three unidentified lipids. MK-7 was the major isoprenoid quinone. Based on these results, it was concluded that the isolate represents a novel species of the genus for which the name sp. nov. is proposed, with DXFW5 (=ACCC 61751=JCM 34488) as the type strain.