Noviherbaspirillum agri sp. nov., isolated from reclaimed grassland soil, and reclassification of Herbaspirillum massiliense (Lagier et al., 2014) as Noviherbaspirillum massiliense comb. nov.

A straw-coloured, Gram-staining-negative, aerobic, motile and rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain K-1-15T, was isolated from reclaimed grassland soil from Biratnagar, Morang, Nepal. This strain was non-spore-forming, catalase-negative and oxidase-positive. It was able to grow at 10-45 °C, pH 6.5-9.5 and 0-1.5 % (w/v) NaCl concentration. This strain was taxonomically characterized by a polyphasic approach. Based on the results of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, K-1-15T formed a distinct lineage within the family Oxalobacteraceae and was most closely related to members of the genera Herbaspirillum(96.99-95.34 % sequence similarity), Noviherbaspirillum(96.72-95.45 % sequence similarity) and Paraherbaspirillum (95.85 % sequence similarity). The only respiratory quinone was ubiquinone-8. The polar lipid profile revealed the presence of phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylcholine. The major fatty acids of K-1-15T were summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c), C16  :   0, summed feature 8 (C18 : 1ω7c and/or C18 : 1ω6c), C10 : 0 3-OH, and iso-C16 : 0. The genomic DNA G+C content of this novel strain was 65.2 mol %. The DNA-DNA relatedness between K-1-15T and Herbaspirillum massiliense DSM 25712T and Noviherbaspirillum soli LMG 26149T were 18.3 and 13.7 % repectively. On the basis of the results of morphological, physiological, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic analyses, K-1-15T represents a novel species of the genus Noviherbaspirillum in the family Oxalobacteraceae, for which the name Noviherbaspirillum agri sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is K-1-15T (=KEMB 9005-422T=KACC 18909T=JCM 31463T). Based on new data obtained in this study, we also propose the reclassification of Herbaspirillum massiliense as Noviherbaspirillum massiliense comb. nov. (type strain JC206T=CSUR P159T=DSM 25712T).