Rhizobium rhizosphaerae sp. nov., a novel species isolated from rice rhizosphere

Two novel, Gram-negative, motile, rod-shaped, aerobic bacterial strains, MH17^T and RD15, were isolated from the sterilized root and rhizosphere soil of rice, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that the similarity between strains MH17^T and RD15 was 100%. The isolates exhibit high sequence similarities to Rhizobium oryzae CGMCC 1.7048^T (98.7%) and Rhizobium petrolearium SL-1^T (97.0% and 97.1%), which supports that they belong to a novel species in the genus Rhizobium. Strains MH17^T and RD15 exhibited growth at 15-45 °C, pH 5.0-11.0, 0-2.0% sodium chloride (w/v). Sequence analysis of housekeeping genes gyrB, recA, atpD, ropB, gltA showed that these two novel strains had less than 94% similarity with the known species, indicating the distinct position of MH17^T and RD15 in the genus Rhizobium. The major cellular fatty acids were identified as summed feature 8 (C_18:1 ω7c and/or C_18:1 ω6c). Type strain MH17^T had 87.5% DNA-DNA relatedness with RD15 by using the initial renaturation rate method. Based on draft genome sequences, strain MH17^T showed 30.1% DNA-DNA hybridization values to R. oryzae CGMCC 1.7048^T, the closely related strain, which supported that MH17^T represents a novel species in the genus Rhizobium. Average nucleotide identity (ANI) between strains MH17^T and RD15 were 97.8%, and strain MH17^T showed 82.2% ANI value with R. oryzae CGMCC 1.7048^T. The DNA G+C content was 60.4 mol% (T_m). Based on physiological, biochemical characteristic, genotypic data, strains MH17^T and RD15 are concluded to represent a new species within the genus Rhizobium, for which the name Rhizobium rhizosphaerae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MH17^T (=ACCC 19963^T = KCTC 52414^T).