A novel Type I methanotroph Methylolobus aquaticus gen. nov. sp. nov. isolated from a tropical wetland

Abstract

A novel gammaproteobacterial methanotroph; strain FWC3 was isolated from a tropical freshwater wetland sample collected near a beach in Western India. Strain FWC3 forms flesh pink/peach colored colonies, is non-motile, and the cells are present as diplococci, triads, tetracocci and aggregates. Strain FWC3 grows only on methane and methanol. As the 16S rRNA gene of strain FWC3 showed low similarities with other Type I methanotrophs (less than 94.3%), it was further investigated for its novelty and characterisation by a polyphasic approach. ANI indices and DDH values deduced from the draft genome of strain FWC3 (SEYW00000000.1) with the other nearest type strains (Methylocaldum marinum S8^T and Methylococcus capsulatus Bath^T) were ~ 70% and ~ 15%, respectively. The low level similarities indicated that strain FWC3 can belong to a new genus and species. Additionally, strain FWC3 showed a unique fatty acid profile with the dominance of C16:1 ω7 and ω6c, C16:0 and C16:1 ω9c. During the characterisation of strain FWC3, a morphologically similar methanotroph, strain C50C1 was described (Ghashghavi et al. in mSphere 4:e00631-18, 2019) and named as 'Methylotetracoccus oryzae'. We found that strain FWC3 and strain C50C1 belonged to the same genus but could belong to different species based on the ANI indices and dDDH values (~ 94% and ~ 55%, respectively). However, strain C50C1 has not been deposited in two culture collections and not been validly described. Also, the 16S rRNA gene of strain C50C1 is neither available on the database nor can it be retrieved from the genome assembly. Based on the polyphasic characterisation and comparison to the other type strains of Methylococcaceae, we propose strain FWC3 (= JCM 33786^T, = KCTC 72733^T, = MCC 4198^T) to be the type strain of a novel genus and species, for which the name Methylolobus aquaticus is proposed. Strain C50C1 (Ghashghavi et al. 2019) could represent another species ('Methylolobus oryzae').

Keywords: India; Methanotrophs; Methylolobus; Novel genus; Tropical; Type Ib; Wetlands.