Mesorhizobium liriopis sp. nov., isolated from the fermented fruit of Liriope platyphylla a medicinal plant

A facultative anaerobic and Gram-negative strain, designated RP14 T , was isolated from the fruit of Liriope platyphylla fermented for 60 days at 25°C. Strain RP14 T showed 98.0 % 16S rRNA similarity to Mesorhizobium huakuii IFO 15243 T , but in the phylogenetic tree, Mesorhizobium terrae NIBRBAC000500504 T was its closest neighbour. The average nucleotide identity and digital DNA–DNA hybridization values between strain RP14 T and 15 genomes of type strains of Mesorhizobium , were 73.8–74.4% and 16.4–20.2 %, respectively, which were lower than the recommended thresholds for species delineation. The strain grew at 25–32°C (optimum, 28°C), at pH 7.0–12.0 (optimum, pH 9.0) and with 0–2% NaCl (optimum, 0 %; w/v). Cells of strain RP14 T were catalase-positive, oxidase-negative, rod-shaped and formed yellow-coloured colonies. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol. The major fatty acid were C 16 : 0 , C 19 : 0 cyclo ω 8 c and summed feature 8 (C 18 : 1 ω 7 c and/or C 18 : 1 ω 6 c ). The DNA G+C content was 62.8 mol%. Based on polyphasic evidence, we propose Mesorhizobium liriopis sp. nov as a novel species within the genus Mesorhizobium. The type strain is RP14 T (=KACC 22720 T =TBRC 16341 T ).