Pontibacter terrae sp nov, isolated from soil

A bacterial strain, designated 17SD1-15, was isolated from soil. Cells of this strain were Gram-stain-negative and aerobic rods. The major fatty acids of strain 17SD1-15 were iso-C15 : 0 and summed feature 4 (anteiso-C17 : 1 B and/or iso-C17 : 1 I). The polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, one phospholipid and five unidentified lipids. The G+C content of the genomic DNA of strain 17SD1-15 was 49.0 mol%. The 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain 17SD1-15 was phylogenetically related to Pontibacter saemangeumensis GCM0142, Pontibacter korlensis X14-1, Pontibacter yuliensis H9X, Pontibacter diazotrophicus H4X and Pontibacter humi SWU8 (98.3, 96.4, 96.4, 96.4 and 96.0 % sequence similarity, respectively). DNA-DNA relatedness between 17SD1-15 and the most closely related type strain of Pontibacter species was 42.9±0.8 %. The low level of DNA-DNA relatedness identified strain 17SD1-15 as a member of a novel species in the genus Pontibacter. The results of genotypic and phenotypic data, including chemotaxonomic traits, showed that strain 17SD1-15 could be distinguished from its phylogenetically related species. Therefore, strain 17SD1-15 represents a novel species within the genus Pontibacter, for which the name Pontibacter terrae sp. nov. is proposed, with the type strain 17SD1-15 (=KCTC 52915=NBRC 113057).