Methylobacterium platani sp. nov., isolated from a leaf of the tree Platanus orientalis

A novel bacterial strain, designated PMB02^T, was isolated from a leaf of the tree Platanus orientalis. Colonies grown on TYG agar plates were circular, pink-pigmented and slow-growing, being 0.2-1.5 mm in diameter after 3 days growth. The cells of strain PMB02^T were Gram-negative, aerobic, motile rods that possessed oxidase and catalase activities and grew at 20-30 °C, pH 6-8 and in media containing less than 1% NaCl. The major respiratory quinone was identified as Q-10. A phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons indicated that strain PMB02^T was related to members of the genus Methylobacterium. A comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence-based phylogenetic analysis placed the strain in a clade with the species Methylobacterium aquaticum and Methylobacterium variabile, with which it showed sequence similarities of 97.7 and 9 7.4 %, respectively. The values for DNA-DNA hybridization between strain PMB02^T and M. aquaticum CCM 7218^T and M. variabile GR3^T were less than 32 %. On the basis of the phenotypic characterization, the phylogenetic analysis and the DNA-DNA relatedness data, strain PMB02^T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Methylobacterium, for which the name Methylobacterium platani sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is PMB02^T (=KCTC 12901^T=JCM 14648^T).