<Emphasis Type="Italic">Paenibacillus pini</Emphasis> sp. nov., a cellulolytic bacterium isolated from the rhizosphere of pine tree

Strain S22^T, a novel cellulolytic bacterium was isolated from the rhizosphere of pine trees. This isolate was Gram-reaction positive, motile and rods, and formed terminal or subterminal ellipsoidal spores. S22^T represented positive activity for catalase, oxidase, esterase (C4), esterase lipase (C8), β-galactosidase, leucine arylamidase, and hydrolysis of esculin. It contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic dia-mino acid in the cell-wall. The predominant isoprenoid quinone was menaquinone 7 (MK-7), and the major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C_15:0 (52.9%), iso-Ci_16:0 (11.3%), and iso-C_15:0 (10.0%). The DNA G+C content was 43.3 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that this isolate belonged to the family Paenibacillaceae. S22^T exhibited less than 97.0% 16S rRNA gene similarity with all relative type strains in the genus Paenibacillus, and the most closely related strains were Paenibacillus anaericanus MH21^T and Paenibacillus ginsengisoli Gsoil 1638^T, with equal similarities of 95.8%. This polyphasic evidence suggested that strain S22^T should be considered a novel species in the genus Paenibacillus, for which the name, Paenibacillus pini sp. nov., is proposed. The type strain is S22^T (=KCTC 13694^T =KACC 14198^T =JCM 16418^T)