Xanthobacter tagetidis sp. nov., an organism associated with Tagetes species and able to grow on substituted thiophenes
Padden, A.N.; Rainey, F.A.; Kelly, D.P.; Wood, A.P.
International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology 47(2): 394-401
1997
ISSN/ISBN: 0020-7713 PMID: 9103627 DOI: 10.1099/00207713-47-2-394
Accession: 009739209
Members of the marigold genus of flowering plants (the genus Tagetes), which synthesize and accumulate thiophene compounds in their roots, were investigated as potential sources of bacteria able to degrade substituted thiophenes. Batch and continuous enrichment cultures inoculated with compost from root balls of Tagetes patula and Tagetes erecta reproducibly produced the same predominant type of bacterium when they were supplied with thiophene-2-carboxylate (T2C) or thiophene-2-acetate (T2A) as a carbon and energy substrate. This organism was a yellow-pigmented, neutrophilic, mesophilic, gram-negative, pleomorphic, rod-shaped bacterium, which we classify as a new species of the genus Xanthobacter, Xanthobacter tagetidis; strain TagT2C (= DSM 11105) is the type strain. Strain TagT2C-T (T = type strain) grew on simple thiophenes, such as T2C, thiophene-3-carboxylate, and T2A, on analogs of these compounds (pyrrole-2-carboxylate and furan-2-carboxylate), and on the condensed thiophene dibenzothiophene. X. tagetidis was facultatively autotrophic, fixing carbon dioxide by means of ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase, and was able to grow on hydrogen, thiosulfate, or sulfide as an energy substrate. It also grew on a wide range of other heterotrophic, chemolithotrophic, and methylotrophic substrates. Its growth on T2C was optimal at 28 to 31 degree C and pH 7.6 to 7.8, and the maximum growth rate in batch culture was 0.22 h-1. The DNA base composition of X. tagetidis is 68 mol% G+C. A 16S ribosomal DNA sequence analysis of strain TagT2C-T showed that this organism represents a distinct lineage within the Aquabacter-Azorhizobium-Xanthobacter cluster of the alpha-2 subclass of the Proteobacteria. Discrimination of X. tagetidis from the other genera in this group and from other Xanthobacter species is discussed.