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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Microbe and Virus Interactions with Plants
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1466733
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate is Changing: Harnessing Plant-Microbe Interactions For Sustainable Agriculture in Arid Areas View all articles

Improving Plant Salt Tolerance through Algoriphagus halophytocola sp. nov., isolated from the Halophyte Salicornia europaea

Provisionally accepted
Yuxin Peng Yuxin Peng 1,2Dong Hyun Cho Dong Hyun Cho 1Zalfa Humaira Zalfa Humaira 1,3Yu L. Park Yu L. Park 1,3Ki Hyun Kim Ki Hyun Kim 1Cha Young Kim Cha Young Kim 1Jiyoung Lee Jiyoung Lee 1,3*
  • 1 Biological Resource Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Jeongeup, Republic of Korea
  • 2 Chonnam National University, Gwangju, Gwangju, Republic of Korea
  • 3 Korea University of Science and Technology, Daejeon, Republic of Korea

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Salicornia europaea, commonly known as glasswort, thrives in reclaimed land and coastal areas with high salinity, demonstrating remarkable adaptation to the arid conditions of such environments. Two aerobic, Gram-stain-negative, non-motile, rod-shaped bacterial strains, designated TR-M5 T and TR-M9, were isolated from the root of Salicornia europaea plants. These bacteria exhibit plant growthpromoting and salt tolerance-enhancing abilities, which have not been reported in other species of the genus. Both strains produce indole-3-acetic acid (IAA), a plant growth hormone, and synthesize proline, which functions as an osmoprotectant. Additionally, they possess gelatinase and cellulase activities. Cells grow in temperatures from 4°C to 42°C (optimum 25°C), pH levels from 6.0 to 9.0 (optimum 7.0), and NaCl concentrations from 0% to 8.0% (optimum 6.0%). The average nucleotide identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridization values of strain TR-M5 T with the most closely related type strains for which whole genomes are publicly available were 74.05%-77.78% and 18.6-23.1 %, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis of their 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strains TR-M5 T and TR-M9 belong to the genus Algoriphagus. A. locisalis exhibited the highest similarity, sharing a sequence identity of 98.1%. The genomes of TR-M5 T and TR-M9 exhibit a G + C content of 43 mol%. This study specifically focuses on the identification and characterization of strain TR-M5 T as a novel species within the genus Algoriphagus, which we propose to name Algoriphagus halophytocola sp. nov., highlighting its potential role in enhancing plant growth and salt tolerance in saline environments.

    Keywords: halophyte, Novel species, plant growth-promoting bacteria, polyphasic taxonomy, salt stress, whole-genome sequence

    Received: 27 Jul 2024; Accepted: 07 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Peng, Cho, Humaira, Park, Kim, Kim and Lee. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Jiyoung Lee, Biological Resource Center, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Jeongeup, Republic of Korea

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