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Azomonas agilis
Colonial morphology (left) and microscopic morphology (x100; right)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Bacteria
Phylum:	Pseudomonadota
Class:	Gammaproteobacteria
Order:	Pseudomonadales
Family:	Pseudomonadaceae
Genus:	Azomonas
Species:	A. agilis
Binomial name
Azomonas agilis (Beijerinck 1901) Winogradsky 1938

Azomonas agilis is a species of motile, Gram-negative bacteria found in water and is capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen. It is the type strain for the genus Azomonas.

A. agilis resembles protists with its ovoid, ellipsoidal, or coccoid cells. The cells are relatively large, usually 2.5–6.4 μm long and 2.0–2.8 μm wide, though giant cells that are 10.0–13.5 μm have been described. The cells have peritrichous flagella which enable motility. The species also produces a diffusible yellow-green or red-violet pigment which fluoresces bluish-white under ultraviolet light.

A. agilis was first isolated and described by Martinus Beijerinck in 1901, who obtained the species from Dutch canal water in Delft. Beijernick's original strain has been lost, so the strain isolated by Albert Kluyver and van den Bout is now the neotype. Despite the fact that mannitol was used by Beijerinck in his enrichment medium for A. agilis, the bacteria in pure culture cannot use it as a carbon source unless it is first degraded by other microbes.

The species can tolerate salt concentrations up to 1.0% and is resistant to iodoacetate (1 μM) which suggests it may have ability to live in contaminated waters with relatively high concentrations of organic matter and mineral salts. This bacterium has also been implicated in the bioremediation of cadmium-polluted water.

References

1. ^ Martin Dworkin; Stanley Falkow (12 October 2006). The prokaryotes: a handbook on the biology of bacteria. Springer. pp. 769–771. ISBN 978-0-387-25496-8. Retrieved 6 March 2012.
2. You KM, Park YK. Cd2 removal by Azomonas agilis PY101, a cadmium accumulating strain in continuous aerobic culture. Biotechnol Lett. 2004 Nov 2;20(12):1157-59.

External links

• Type strain of Azomonas agilis at BacDive - the Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase

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• Pseudomonadales
• Bacteria described in 1938
• Pseudomonadales stubs