Pontibacter harenae sp. nov., isolated from the soil of a Populus euphratica forest

A Gram-negative, rod-shaped, aerobic and light pink-pigmented bacterium, designated XAAS-A31^T, was isolated from the soil of a Populus euphratica forest located near Hotan City, Xinjiang, PR China. Polyphasic, taxonomic and phylogenomic analyses were used to determine the taxonomy position of the strain. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated that XAAS-A31^T belongs to the genus Pontibacter, family Hymenobacteraceae, and shows highest sequence similarity to Pontibacter silvestris XAAS-R86^T (96.2 %). The digital DNA-DNA hybridization (22.0 %-19.2 %) and orthologous average nucleotide identity (74.1 %-72.7 %) values relative to closest validly published Pontibacter species were lower than the recommended thresholds of 70 and 96 %, respectively. The cells grew at 4-40 °C (optimum, 28-30 °C), at pH 6.5-8.5 (pH 7.0-7.5) and with 0-8% NaCl (0.5-2.0% NaCl). The main respiratory quinone of XAAS-A31^T is MK-7, and the principal cellular fatty acids are iso-C_15 : 0, iso-C_17 : 0 3OH and summed feature 4 (iso-C_17 : 1 I and/or anteiso-C_17 : 1 B). The major polar lipids are phosphatidylethanolamine, three unidentified amino-phospholipids, one unidentified glycolipid and eight unidentified lipids. The genome length of strain XAAS-A31^T is 5.48 Mbp with a DNA G+C content of 44.2 mol% and 4013 protein-coding genes. Phenotypic and genotypic data suggested that XAAS-A31^T represents a novel Pontibacter species, for which we propose the name Pontibacter harenae sp. nov. and type strain XAAS-A31^T (=CCTCC AB 2017162^T=KCTC 62049^T).