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Frankia inefficax sp. nov., an actinobacterial endophyte inducing ineffective, non nitrogen-fixing, root nodules on its actinorhizal host plants

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Abstract

Strain EuI1cT is the first actinobacterial endophyte isolated from Elaeagnus umbellata that was shown to be infective on members of Elaeagnaceae and Morella but lacking the ability to form effective root nodules on its hosts. The strain can be easily distinguished from strains of other Frankia species based on its inability to produce vesicles, the specialized thick-walled structures where nitrogen fixation occurs. Chemotaxonomically, strain EuI1cT contains phosphatidylinositol, diphosphatidylglycerol, two glycophospholipids and phosphatidylglycerol as phospholipids. The whole cell sugars were composed of glucose, galactose, mannose, ribose, rhamnose and fucose as diagnostic sugars of the species. Major fatty acids were iso-C16:0, C17:1 ω8c and C15:0 and C17:0 and the predominant menaquinones were MK-9(H6), MK-9(H8) and MK-9(H4). Analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain EuI1cT showed 97, 97.4 and 97.9% identity with Frankia elaeagni DSM 46783T, Frankia casuarinae DSM 45818T and Frankia alni DSM 45986T, respectively. Digital DNA:DNA hybridizations with type strains of the three Frankia species with validly/effectively published names are significantly below 70%. These results warrant distinction of EuI1cT (= DSM 45817T = CECT 9037T) as the type strain of a novel species designated Frankia inefficax sp. nov.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Laboratoire Microorganismes & Biomolécules Actives, Université Tunis El-Manar, Tunisia (grant LR03ES03). We are grateful to Marlen Jando and Gabriele Pötter for help with the chemotaxonomic analyses and to Brian J. Tindall (all at DSMZ) for helpful advice.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Microorganismes et Biomolécules Actives, Université Tunis El Manar (FST) & Université de Carthage (INSAT), 2092, Tunis, Tunisia

    Imen Nouioui, Faten Ghodhbane-Gtari & Maher Gtari

  2. School of Biology, Newcastle University, Ridley Building 2, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK

    Imen Nouioui, Maria del Carmen Montero-Calasanz & Hans-Peter Klenk

  3. Central Facility for Microscopy, HZI – Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Inhoffenstraße 7, 38124, Braunschweig, Germany

    Manfred Rohde

  4. Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Biomedical Sciences, University of New Hampshire, 289 Rudman Hall, 46 college Road, Durham, NH, 03824-2617, USA

    Louis S. Tisa

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  1. Imen Nouioui
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Correspondence to Maher Gtari.

Additional information

GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers of the 16S rRNA gene and the whole genome sequences of EuI1c are respectively KX695197 and CP002299.

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Nouioui, I., Ghodhbane-Gtari, F., del Carmen Montero-Calasanz, M. et al. Frankia inefficax sp. nov., an actinobacterial endophyte inducing ineffective, non nitrogen-fixing, root nodules on its actinorhizal host plants. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek 110, 313–320 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10482-016-0801-7

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