Polymorphobacter megasporae sp. nov., isolated from an Antarctic lichen

Abstract

Gram-staining-negative, aerobic, orange-colored, rod-shaped, and non-motile bacterial strain, PAMC 29362T was isolated from an Antarctic lichen, Megaspora verrucosa. Phylogenetic and phylogenomic analyses indicated that strain PAMC 29362T belongs to the genus Polymorphobacter and was most closely related to Polymorphobacter arshaanensis (96.9% of 16S rRNA gene similarity), Polymorphobacter fuscus (96.5%), Polymorphobacter glacialis (95.8%), and Polymorphobacter multimanifer (95.5%). Genomic relatedness analyses showed that strain PAMC 29362T is clearly distinguished from type strains of the genus Polymorphobacter based on values of average nucleotide identity (< 74.3%) and the digital DNA-DNA hybridization (< 20.4%). The genomic DNA G+C contents of PAMC 29362T was 65.5%. The major fatty acids (>10%) were summed feature 8 (C18:1 ω7c; 38.5%) and summed feature 3 (C16:1 ω7c and/or C16:1 ω6c; 31.5%). The major respiratory quinone was Q-10. Based on the results of phylogenetic, genome-based relatedness, and physiological analyses, strain PAMC 29362T is proposed to represent a novel species of the genus Polymorphobacter, with the name Polymorphobacter megasporiae. The type strain is PAMC 29362T (= KCTC 82578T = JCM 34545T)