View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by National Chung Hsing University Institutional Repository International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (2008), 58, 946–951 DOI 10.1099/ijs.0.65434-0 Azonexus hydrophilus sp. nov., a nifH gene-harbouring bacterium isolated from freshwater Jui-Hsing Chou,1 Sing-Rong Jiang,2 Jang-Cheon Cho,3 Jaeho Song,3 Mei-Chun Lin2 and Wen-Ming Chen2 Correspondence 1Department of Soil and Environmental Sciences, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Wen-Ming Chen National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan
[email protected] 2Laboratory of Microbiology, Department of Seafood Science, National Kaohsiung Marine University, No. 142, Hai-Chuan Rd, Nan-Tzu, Kaohsiung City 811, Taiwan 3Division of Biology and Ocean Sciences, Inha University, Yonghyun Dong, Incheon 402-751, Republic of Korea Three Gram-negative, non-pigmented, rod-shaped, facultatively aerobic bacterial strains, designated d8-1T, d8-2 and IMCC1716, were isolated from a freshwater spring sample and a eutrophic freshwater pond. Based on characterization using a polyphasic approach, the three strains showed highly similar phenotypic, physiological and genetic characteristics. All of the strains harboured the nitrogenase gene nifH, but nitrogen-fixing activities could not be detected in nitrogen-free culture media. The three strains shared 99.6–99.7 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity and showed 89–100 % DNA–DNA relatedness, suggesting that they represent a single genomic species. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strains d8-1T, d8-2 and IMCC1716 formed a monophyletic branch in the periphery of the evolutionary radiation occupied by the genus Azonexus.