Agromyces luteolus sp nov., Agromyces rhizospherae sp nov and Agromyces bracchium sp nov., from the mangrove rhizosphere

The taxonomic positions of four strains isolated from the mangrove rhizosph ere were studied by a polyphasic approach using phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genetic methods, The four isolates contain 2,4-diaminobutyric acid in t heir peptidoglycan, and rhamnose as the major cell wall sugar. The predomin ant menaquinones are MK-12 and MK-11. The predominant cellular fatty acids are iso-C-16:0, anteiso-C-15:0 and/or anteiso-C-17:0. The G+C content of th e DNA ranges from 70.0 to 73.3 mol%, The four strains formed a coherent clu ster with Agromyces species in a phylogenetic inference based on 16S rDNA s equences, Interestingly, the four isolates grew well in the presence of 5% NaCl, The differences in some phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics , 16S rDNA sequence similarity data and DNA-DNA relatedness data indicate t hat the four isolates represent three new species in the genus Agromyces, f or which are proposed the names Agromyces luteolus for strain 8(T) (IFO 162 35(T) = VKM Ac-2085(T)), Agromyces bracchium for strain 65(T) (IFO 16238(T) = VKM Ac-2088(T)) and Agromyces rhizospherae for strains 14(T) (IFO 16236( T) = VKM Ac-2086(T)) and 58(5) (IFO 16237 = VKM Ac-2087).