Methylobacterium ajmalii sp. nov., Isolated From the International Space Station Author Bijlani, Swati Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States Author Singh, Nitin K. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States Author Eedara, V. V. Ramprasad Department of Plant Science, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India Author Podile, Appa Rao Department of Plant Science, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India Author Mason, Christopher E. WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, United States Author Wang, Clay C. C. Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States clayw@usc.edu Author Venkateswaran, Kasthuri Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, United States kjvenkat@jpl.nasa.gov text Frontiers in Microbiology 2021 2021-03-15 12 639396 1 14 journal article 10.3389/fmicb.2021.639396 5934c7a9-c774-4a19-9f89-7db19e6123d3 PMC8005752 33790880 4647565 Description of Methylobacterium ajmalii sp. nov. Methylobacterium ajmalii (aj.ma’li.i. N.L. gen. n. ajmalii named after Ajmal Khan, a renowned Indian scientist on biodiversity). Cells are Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, and motile rods showing oxidase- and catalase-positive reactions. Cells are 1.6–1.8 µm wide and 2.2–3.2 µm long. Colonies on R2A agar are reddish pink–pigmented, circular, convex, and smooth, with a diameter of approximately 0.6–1.0 mm after 3 days of incubation on R2A agar. Growth occurs at 25–30 ◦ C (optimum, 30 ◦ C), at pH 6.0–8.0 (optimum, pH 7.0) and in the presence of 0–1.0% (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 0%). In API ZYM tests, the strain is positive for Alkaline phosphatase, Esterase (C4), Esterase lipase (C8), Leucine arylamidase, Trypsin, Acid phosphatase, and Naphthol-AS-BI-phosphohydrolase, but negative for other enzyme activities. Cells utilize Adipic acid, D- glucose, D- maltose, D- mannitol, D- mannose, L-arabinose, Malic acid, N-acetylglucosamine, Potassium gluconate, and Trisodium citrate for growth, but not other substrates in API 20NE. Cells are capable of weakly fermenting inulin and D- melezitose as observed in API 50 CH. Ubiquinone Q-10 is the predominant respiratory isoprenoid quinone. The major fatty acid is summed feature 8 (comprising C18:1 ω7 c and/or C18:1 ω6 c ). The major polar lipids are diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine, and phosphatidylglycerol. The genomic DNA G + Ccontent of the type strain is 71.07 mol%. *Total protein coding genes as per annotated genome. The type strain IF7SW-B2 T is isolated from the International Space Station.