Abstract
The rhizosphere microbial community is closely associated with plant disease by regulating plant growth, agricultural production, nutrient availability, plant hormone and adaptation to environmental changes. Therefore, it is very important to identify the rhizosphere microbes around plant roots and understand their functions. While studying the differences between the rhizosphere microbiota of healthy and diseased apple trees to find the cause of apple tree disease, we isolated a novel strain, designated as B3-10(T), from the rhizosphere soil of a healthy apple tree. The genome relatedness indices between strain B3-10(T) and other type species of family Chitinophagaceae were in the ranges of 62.4-67.0% for ANI, 18.6-32.1% for dDDH, and 39.0-56.6% for AAI, which were significantly below the cut‑off values for the species delineation, indicating that strain B3-10(T) could be considered to represent a novel genus in family Chitinophagaceae. Interestingly, the complete genome of strain B3-10(T) contained a number of genes encoding ACC-deaminase, siderophore production, and acetoin production contributing to plant-beneficial functions. Furthermore, strain B3-10(T) was found to significantly promote the growth of shoots and roots of the Nicotiana benthamiana, which is widely used as a good model for plant biology, demonstrating that strain B3-10(T), a rhizosphere microbe of healthy apple trees, has the potential to promote growth and reduce disease. The phenotypic, chemotaxonomic, phylogenetic, genomic, and physiological properties of this plant growth-promoting (rhizo)bacterium, strain B3-10(T) supported the proposal of a novel genus in the family Chitinophagaceae, for which the name Rhizosphaericola mali gen. nov., sp. nov. (= KCTC 72123(T) = NBRC 114178(T)).