Chitinophaga deserti sp. nov., isolated from desert soil

An aerobic bacterial strain, designated XJ-2(T), was isolated from a soil sample collected from Gurbantunggut Sandy Desert in PR China. Cells of strain XJ-2(T) were Gram-stain-negative, non-motile, rod-shaped and non-spore-forming. The new isolate grew well at 10-37 degrees C (optimum, 28-30 degrees C), pH 6.0-11.0 (pH 7.0) and 0-1 % (w/v) NaCl (0 %). The 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain XJ-2(T) showed the highest similarity to that of Chitinophaga rhizosphaerae T16R-86(T)- (99.0 %), followed by Chitinophaga barathri YLT18(T) (97.0 %), Chitinophaga humicola Ktm-2(T) (96.7 %) and Chitinophaga niabensis JS13-10(T) (96.4 %). The major menaquinone of strain XJ-2(T) was menaquinone 7 and the predominant fatty acids (>5 %) were iso-C-15:0, C-16:1 omega 5c and isoC(17:0) 3-OH. The polar lipids consisted of phosphatidylethanolamine, an unidentified glycolipid, three unidentified aminolipids and five unidentified lipids. The genome size was 6.33 Mb, comprising 5268 predicted genes with a G+C content of 41.5 mol%. The DNA G+C content was 50.5 mol% based on total genome calculations. The average nucleotide identity and the digital DNA-DNA hybridization values between strain XJ-2(T) and strain T16R-86(T)- were 79.6 and 22.3 %, respectively. DNA-DNA relatedness between strain XJ-2(T) and strain YLT18(T)- was 17.0 %. Based on the physiological, biochemical and chemotaxonomic characteristics, strain XJ-2(T) represents a novel species of the genus Chitinophaga, for which the name Chitinophaga deserti sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is XJ-2(T) (KCTC 62443(T)=CCTCC AB 2018019(T)).