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 ω8c and summed feature 8 (C_18:1 ω7c and/or C_18:1 ω6c). The DNA G+C content was 62.8mol%. 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).