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Abstract
Few diazotrophs have been found to belong to the family Cytophagaceae so far. In the present study, a Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium that forms red colonies, was isolated from sands of the Takalamakan desert. It was designated H4XT. Phylogenetic and biochemical analysis indicated that the isolate is a new species of the genus Pontibacter. The 16S rRNA gene of H4XT displays 94.2–96.8% sequence similarities to those of other strains in Pontibacter. The major respiratory quinone is menaquinone-7 (MK-7). The DNA G+C content is 46.6 mol%. The major cellular fatty acids are iso-C15∶0, C16∶1ω5c, summed feature 3 (containing C16∶1ω6c and/or C16∶1ω7c) and summed feature 4 (comprising anteiso-C17∶1B and/or iso-C17∶1I). The major polar lipids are phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), one aminophospholipid (APL) and some unknown phospholipids (PLs). It is interesting to see that this bacterium can grow very well in a nitrogen-free medium. PCR amplification suggested that the bacterium possesses at least one type of nitrogenase gene. Acetylene reduction assay showed that H4XT actually possesses nitrogen-fixing activity. Therefore, it can be concluded that H4XT is a new diazotroph. We thus referred it to as Pontibacter diazotrophicus sp. nov. The type strain is H4XT ( = CCTCC AB 2013049T = NRRL B-59974T).
Highlights
The Takalamakan desert is situated in the middle of the Tarim basin, Xinjiang province of China
Sequence analysis for the 16S rRNA genes of these bacteria showed that we discovered a new strain of bacteria with potential nitrogen-fixing activity, which was designated H4XT
Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the strain H4XT is most closely related with P. saemangeumensis GCM0142T and P. xinjiangensis 311-10T (Figure 1)
Summary
The Takalamakan desert is situated in the middle of the Tarim basin, Xinjiang province of China. It is the world’s second largest shifting sand desert. Taklamakan has another name ‘‘the Sea of Death’’ due to its extremely rigorous climate. The highest temperature reached 65.6uC in summer and the lowest was below 220uC in winter. It is very arid in the Takalamakan area. The annual precipitation is less than 100 mm, while evaporation reaches 2500–3400 mm. The environmental conditions are extremely rigorous, some plants, such as Populus euphratica, still exist in Taklamakan Desert [1]
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