Genetic diversity of endophytic diazotrophs of the wild rice, Oryza alta and identification of the new diazotroph, Acinetobacter oryzae sp. nov.

Thirty-three endophytic diazotrophs were isolated from surface-sterilized leaves, stem, and roots of wild rice Oryza alta. The SDS-PAGE profile of total protein and insertion sequence-based polymerase chain reaction (IS-PCR) fingerprinting grouped the isolates into four clusters (I-IV). The 16S rRNA gene sequence homology of the representative strains B21, B31, B1, and B23 of clusters I, II, III, and IV were assigned to Pseudomonas oleovorans (99.2% similarity), Burkholderia fungorum (99.4% similarity), Enterobacter cloacae (98.9% similarity), and Acinetobacter johnsonii (98.4% similarity), respectively. The results showed wide genetic diversity of the putative diazotrophic strains of the wild rice, O. alta, and the strains of cluster IV are the first report of nitrogen-fixing Acinetobacter species. The cell size, phenotypic characters, total protein profile, genomic DNA fingerprinting, DNA-DNA hybridization, and antibiotic resistance differentiated strain B23(T) from its closest relatives A. johnsonii LMG999(T) and Acinetobacter haemolyticus LMG996(T). The DNA-DNA hybridization also distinguished the strain B23(T) from the closely related Acinetobacter species. Based on these data, a novel species, Acinetobacter oryzae sp. nov., and strain B23(T) (=LMG25575(T) = CGMCC1.10689(T)) as the type strain were proposed.