Methylobacterium phyllosphaerae sp. nov., a pink-pigmented, facultative methylotroph from the phyllosphere of rice

1 Department of Agricultural Chemistry, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, Chungbuk 361-763, Republic of Korea 2 Korean Agricultural Culture Collection (KACC), Microbial Genetics Division, National Institute of Agricultural Biotechnology, Rural Development Administration, Suwon 441-707, Republic of Korea Correspondence Tong-Min Sa tomsa{at}chungbuk.ac.kr A pink-pigmented, aerobic, facultatively methylotrophic bacterial strain, CBMB27 T , isolated from leaf tissues of rice ( Oryza sativa L. ‘Dong-Jin’), was analysed using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence-based phylogenetic analysis placed the strain in a clade with the species Methylobacterium oryzae , Methylobacterium fujisawaense and Methylobacterium mesophilicum ; strain CBMB27 T showed sequence similarities of 98.3, 98.5 and 97.3 %, respectively, to the type strains of these three species. DNA–DNA hybridization experiments revealed low levels (