Rothia santali sp. nov., endophytic bacteria isolated from sandalwood (Santalum album L.) seedling

A novel, mustard yellow-pigmented aerobic bacterial strain designated AR01^T was isolated from hypocotyl tissue of a sandalwood seedling from Bangalore, India. The 16S rRNA gene of strain AR01^T had the highest 98.97% sequence similarity with Rothia halotolerans YIM 90716^T (KCTC 19172) followed by Rothia kristinae PM 129^T (NBRC 15354^T) (97.31%) and Rothia koreensis P31^T (JCM 15915) (97.11%), respectively. The strain AR01^T was coccoid-shaped, non-motile, non-spore forming, oxidase negative and catalase positive. The strain AR01^T has a genome size of 3.31 Mb containing 2993 protein-coding genes including 48 tRNA and 10 rRNAs spread across 84 contigs. The genomic DNA G + C content was 71.77 mol%. The calculated dDDH was 31.10% and the OrthoANI value was 85.27% when compared with its closest related type strain Rothia halotolerans YIM 90716^T. The predominant cellular fatty acids were C_{16:0 iso}, C_{15:0 anteiso} and C_{17:0 anteiso}. The strain AR01^T contains major polar lipids including diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol. The distinct physiological, biochemical characteristics and genotypic relatedness indicated that AR01^T represents a novel species of the genus Rothia, for which the name Rothia santali sp. nov. (Type strain AR01^T = MCC 4800^T = JCM 35593^T) is proposed.