Grow well on NA, BHI and 272 agar, but not on MacConkey and TSA agar. After 2 days of incubation at 30 °C on R2A agar, colonies are cream and circular, and cells are Gram-stain-negative, oxidase-positive, catalase-positive, aerobic, motile, rod-shaped and approximately 1.4–2.9 μm long and 0.6–0.8 μm wide (Fig. S4). The temperature range for growth is 10–42 °C (optimum, 30 °C). The pH range for growth is pH 5.0–9.5 (optimum, pH 7.0). Growth occurs at a NaCl concentration of 0–4.5% (optimum, 2.0%). It could not hydrolyse starch, CM-cellulose, casein, chitin, Tween 20, 40 and 80. It does not contain the nodulation genes (nodC and nodA) and nitrogenase reductase gene (nifH). The predominant fatty acids (> 5% of the total amounts) include Summed Feature 8 (C18:1ω7c and/or C18:1ω6c, 72.9%), Summed Feature 2 (iso-C16:1 I and/or C14:0 3-OH, 6.3%) and C18:0 (5.7%).
The type strain, CL12T (=GDMCC 1.1597T = KACC 21281T), was isolated from roots of G. max (Linn. Merr.). The genome size is 4.84 Mbp, with a high genomic DNA G+C content of 61.1 mol%. The GenBank accession numbers of 16S rRNA, recA, atpD, rpoB, glnA gene sequences and the whole genome sequence of strain CL12T are MF383489, MN087401, MN087402, MN087403, MN087404, and VFYP00000000, respectively.