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 rhizosphere were studied by a polyphasic approach using phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genetic methods. The four isolates contain 2,4-diaminobutyric acid in their peptidoglycan, and rhamnose as the major cell wall sugar. The predominant menaquinones are MK-12 and MK-11. The predominant cellular fatty acids are iso-C16:0, anteiso-C15:0 and/or anteiso-C17:0. The G+C content of the DNA ranges from 70.0 to 73.3 mol%. The four strains formed a coherent cluster with Agromyces species in a phylogenetic inference based on 16S rDNA sequences. 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 that the four isolates represent three new species in the genus Agromyces, for which are proposed the names Agromyces luteolus for strain 8T (IFO 16235T = VKM Ac-2085T), Agromyces bracchium for strain 65T (IFO 16238T = VKM Ac-2088T) and Agromyces rhizospherae for strains 14T (IFO 16236T = VKM Ac-2086T) and 58(5) (IFO 16237 = VKM Ac-2087).