RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Rivas, Raúl A1 Willems, Anne A1 Palomo, José Luis A1 García-Benavides, Pablo A1 Mateos, Pedro F. A1 Martínez-Molina, Eustoquio A1 Gillis, Monique A1 Velázquez, EncarnaYR 2004 T1 Bradyrhizobium betae sp. nov., isolated from roots of Beta vulgaris affected by tumour-like deformations JF International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, VO 54 IS 4 SP 1271 OP 1275 DO https://doi.org/10.1099/ijs.0.02971-0 PB Microbiology Society, SN 1466-5034, AB Some varieties of sugar beet, Beta vulgaris, cultivated in northern Spain have large deformations that resemble the tumours produced by Agrobacterium species. In an attempt to isolate the agent responsible for these deformations, several endophytic slow-growing bacterial strains were isolated, the macroscopic morphology of which resembled that of Bradyrhizobium species. These strains were not able to produce tumours in Nicotiana tabacum plants and, based on phylogenetic analysis of their 16S rRNA, they are closely related to the genus Bradyrhizobium. Phenotypic and molecular characteristics of these strains revealed that they represent a species different from all Bradyrhizobium species previously described. Sequence analysis of the 16S–23S rDNA intergenic spacer region indicated that these novel strains form a homogeneous group, related to Bradyrhizobium japonicum, Bradyrhizobium liaoningense and Bradyrhizobium yuanmingense. DNA–DNA hybridization confirmed that these strains represent a novel species of the genus Bradyrhizobium, for which the name Bradyrhizobium betae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is PL7HG1T (=LMG 21987T=CECT 5829T)., UL https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/ijsem/10.1099/ijs.0.02971-0