Azospirillum isscasi sp. nov., a bacterium isolated from rhizosphere soil of rice

A Gram- negative and rod- shaped bacterium, designated C340 - 1T, was isolated and screened from paddy soil in Zhongshan County, Guangxi Province, PR China. This strain grew at 20-42 degrees C (optimum, 37 degrees C), pH 5.0-9.0 (optimum, pH 7.0) and 0-4 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 0-1 %) on Reasoner's 2A medium. The strain could fix atmospheric nitrogen and acetylene reduction activity was recorded up to 120.26 nmol ethylene h-1 (mg protein)-1. Q- 10 was the only isoprenoid quinone component; phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, an unidentified aminolipid and an unidentified polar lipid were the major polar lipids. Summed feature 8 (C18:1 w7c and/or C18:1 w6c) and summed feature 3 (C16:1 w7c and/or C16:1 w6c) were the primary cellular fatty acids. The genome of strain C340 - 1T was 6.18 Mb, and the G+C content was 69.0 mol%. Phylogenetic tree analysis based on 16S rRNA gene and 92 core genes showed that strain C340 - 1T was closely related to and clustered with the type strains Azospirillum brasilense JCM 1224T, Azospirillum argentinense Az39T, Azospirillum baldaniorum Sp245T and Azospirillum formosense JCM 17639T. The average nucleotide identity (ANI), average amino acid identity (AAI) and digital DNA-DNA hybridization (dDDH) values between strain C340 - 1T and the closely related type strains mentioned above were significantly lower than the threshold values for species classification (95-96 %, 95-96 % and 70 %, respectively). Based on phylogenetic, genomic, phenotypic, physiological and biochemical data, we have reason to believe that C340 - 1T represents a new species of the genus Azospirillum, for which the name Azospirillum isscasi sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is C340- 1T(=CCTCC AB 2023105T=KCTC 8126T).