A psychrotolerant bacterial strain, designated ZS13-49T, with strong extracellular polysaccharide synthesis ability was isolated from soil collected in Antarctica and subjected to polyphasic taxonomic and comparative genomics. Chemotaxonomic features, including fatty acids, and polar lipid profiles, support the assignment of strain ZS13-49T to the genus Pedobacter. 16S rRNA gene phylogeny demonstrates that strain ZS13-49T forms a well-supported separate branch as a sister clade to Pedobacter gandavensis LMG 31462T and is clearly separated from Pedobacter steynii DSM 19110T and Pedobacter caeni DSM 16990T. Phylogenetic analysis showed strain ZS13-49T shared the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity (99.9%) with P. gandavensis LMG 31462T. However, the digital DNA–DNA hybridization (dDDH), average nucleotide identity (ANI) value and average amino identity (AAI) value between strain ZS13-49T and P. gandavensis LMG 31462T were 26.5, 83.3 and 87.5%, respectively. Phylogenomic tree and a comparative genomic analysis indicated distinct characteristics to distinguish strain ZS13-49T from the closely related species. The complete genome sequence of strain ZS13-49T consists of 5 830,353 bp with 40.61% G + C content. Genomic features of strain ZS13-49T adapted to Antarctic environment were also revealed. Based on the phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genomic data, strain ZS13-49T could be assigned to a novel species within the genus Pedobacter for which the name Pedobacter polysacchareus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is ZS13-49T ( = CCTCC AB 2019394T = KCTC 72824T).

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