A Gram-stain-negative, non-flagellated, rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain T22T, 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 T22T was related most closely to Chitinophaga barathri YLT18T (=CCTCC AB 2015054T) with similarity of 97.7 %. However, strain T22T was clearly distinguished from Chitinophaga barathri YLT18T 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 T22T represents a novel species of the genus Chitinophaga, for which the name Chitinophaga alhagiae sp. nov., is proposed. The type strain is T22T (=ACCC 60125T=KCTC 62518T).
Keywords: Alhagi sparsifolia; Bacteria; Chitinophaga; rhizosphere soil.