In a survey of endophytic bacteria in Miscanthus sinensis, a strain of Gram-negative, non-endospore-forming, rod-shaped, aerobic bacterium was isolated and designated as RS10T. Phylogenetic analysis based on its 16S rRNA gene sequence showed that the strain RS10T was affiliated with the genus Pedobacter and exhibited the highest sequence similarities to Pedobacter kyungheensis KACC 16221T (97.78 %), Pedobacter roseus KCTC 22187T (97.75 %), Pedobacter humicola KACC 18452T (97.29 %) and Pedobacter soli KACC 14939T (97.23 %). The novel strain contained iso-C15 : 0, iso-C17 : 0-3OH and summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c) as major fatty acids. The only isoprenoid quinone detected in strain RS10T was MK-7. Strain RS10T contains phosphatidylethanolamine and one kind of aminophospholipid as its major polar lipids. The DNA G+C content for RS10T was 39.8 mol%. Based on the results of phenotypic and genomic characterizations, we concluded that strains RS10T represents a novel species of Pedobacter, for which the name Pedobacter miscanthi sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is RS10T (=KCTC 62786T=GDMCC 1.1415T).
Keywords: Pedobacter miscanthi; endophytic bacteria; phenotypic analyses; phylogenetic analyses.