Chitinophaga alhagiae sp. nov., isolated from rhizosphere soil of Alhagi sparsifolia.

A Gram-stain-negative, non-flagellated, rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain T22, was isolated from rhizosphere soil of Alhagi sparsifolia, collected from Xinjiang, China. Its major fatty acids (>5 %) were iso-C15 : 0, C16 : 1ω5c, iso-C17 : 0-3OH, summed feature 1 (C13 : 0 3-OH/iso-C15 : 1 H) and summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω6c/C16 : 1ω7c). The predominant respiratory quinone was MK-7. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, two aminolipids and four unidentified lipids. The DNA G+C content of the type strain was 53.4 mol%. According to phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences, strain T22 was related most closely to Chitinophaga barathri YLT18 (=CCTCC AB 2015054) with similarity of 97.7 %. However, strain T22 was clearly distinguished from Chitinophaga barathri YLT18 using genome-to-genome distance and average nucleotide identity value calculation, as well as a range of physiological and biochemical characteristics comparisons. It is obvious from the genotypic and phenotypic data that strain T22 represents a novel species of the genus Chitinophaga, for which the name Chitinophaga alhagiae sp. nov., is proposed. The type strain is T22 (=ACCC 60125=KCTC 62518).