Burkholderia silvatlantica sp. nov., a diazotrophic bacterium associated with sugar cane and maize

1 Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, km 45, BR 465, C.P. 74505, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 2 Embrapa Agrobiology, km 47, BR 465, C.P. 74505, Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 3 Centro de Ciencias Genómicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ap. Postal 565-A, Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico Correspondence J. Caballero-Mellado jesuscab{at}cifn.unam.mx In a previous study, nitrogen-fixing isolates were recovered from the rhizosphere of maize and from surface-sterilized leaves of sugar cane cultivated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities, these isolates were identified as belonging to the genus Burkholderia , and whole-cell-protein profiles demonstrated that they are closely related to each other. In the present study, novel isolates were recovered from the roots of different sugar-cane varieties cultivated in diverse geographical regions of Brazil. Twenty-one nitrogen-fixing isolates were analysed using polyphasic taxonomy criteria, including DNA–DNA relatedness, 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities, fatty acid profiles, whole-cell-protein patterns and multilocus enzyme electrophoresis profiles, as well as morphological, physiological and biochemical characterization. The analysis confirmed that these isolates belong to a novel species within the genus Burkholderia , for which the name Burkholderia silvatlantica sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain, SRMrh-20 T (=LMG 23149 T =ATCC BAA-1244 T ), was isolated from the rhizosphere of maize var. Avantis A2345 cultivated in Seropédica, Rio de Janeiro. Abbreviations: ARDRA, amplified rDNA restriction analysis; MLEE, multilocus enzyme electrophoresis The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the 16S rRNA gene sequences of strains SRMrh-20 T , SRCL-18, SRMrh-85 and PPCR-2 are AY965240 –AY965243, respectively. A dendrogram derived from MLEE and SDS-PAGE showing whole-cell protein profiles for the novel strains, N 2 -fixing Burkholderia species and B. sacchari are available as supplementary figures in IJSEM Online. These authors contributed equally to this work.