Serratia nevei sp. nov. and Serratia bockelmannii sp. nov., isolated from fresh produce in Germany and reclassification of Serratia marcescens subsp. sakuensis Ajithkumar et al. 2003 as a later heterotypic synonym of Serratia marcescens subsp. marcescens.

Fifteen enterobacterial strains were isolated from fresh produce. The 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that these belong to Serratia, with twelve strains showing 99.57%-99.93% and three strains showing 99.86-100% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity with Serratia marcescens and Serratia nematodiphila as nearest neighbors, respectively. Further comparative multi locus sequence analyses, as well as phylogenomic comparisons, revealed that 6 of the 15 strains were well-separated from their nearest neighbors and formed two clearly distinct taxa. Strains S2, S9, S10 and S15T were urease-positive, while strains S3T and S13 were urease-negative. Average nucleotide identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridization comparisons of representative strains S3T and S15T with type strains of S. marcescens, S. nematodiphila and S. ureilytica indicated that these shared less than 96% and 70% homology, respectively. Major fatty acids of strains S3T and S15T included C16:0, C16:1 ω7c/C16:1 ω6c, C17:0 Cyclo and C18:1 ω6c /C18:1 ω7c. The mol% G+C of genomic DNA of strain S15T was 59.49% and of strain S3T was 59.04. These results support the description of two novel species, Serratia nevei and Serratia bockelmannii, with strains S15T (=LMG 31536T =DSM 110085T) and S3T (=LMG 31535T =DSM 110152T) as type strains, respectively. Although Serratia marcescens subsp. sakuensis was previously described to form spores, spores could not be determined in this study. As spore formation was the only differential characteristic of this subspecies, S. marcescens subsp. sakuensis is a later heterotypic synonym of Serratia marcescens.