Methylobacterium endophyticum sp. nov. and Endoryza foliicola gen. nov., sp. nov., two novel endophytic bacterial species isolated from rice phyllosphere.

Four endophytic bacterial strains sgz302541T, sgz302542, sgz302552T and sgz302555 were isolated from the rice phyllosphere in Fujian Province, China. Cells were Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, rod-shaped and motile. The optimal growth conditions for all strains were at 30 °C and pH 7.0 without NaCl. Strain sgz302541T showed the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to Methylobacterium jeotgali S2R03-9T (97.7%), while strain sgz302552T shared the highest similarity with Paraflavitalea soli 5GH32-13T (96.1%). Genome sequencing revealed that the DNA G+C content of sgz302541T was 70.3%, and that of sgz302552T was 40.7%. The ANI values between strain sgz302541T, sgz302552T and their closest strains were 85.9% and 71.0%, respectively. The AAI values between sgz302552T and all genera within the family Chitinophagaceae ranged from 50.5 to 63.9%. The major fatty acids (>10%) of sgz302541T and sgz302552T were summed feature 8 (C18 : 1  ω7c and/or C18 : 1  ω6c; 70.1%), iso-C15 : 0 (38.0%) and iso-C15 : 1 G (17.2%), respectively. The predominant respiratory quinones for sgz302541T and sgz302552T were Q-10 and MK-7, respectively. Physiological, biochemical, phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic analyses indicated that strains sgz302541T and sgz302552T represent two novel taxa, for which the names Methylobacterium endophyticum sp. nov. (type strain sgz302541T=MCCC 1K09625T=KCTC 8981T) and Endoryza foliicola gen. nov., sp. nov. (type strain sgz302552T (=MCCC 1K09627T=KCTC 102381T) are proposed, respectively.