Proposal for the creation of a new genus gen. nov., reclassification of (Samson . 2005) as comb. nov. and description of a new species sp. nov.

The family of important plant pathogens includes the genus . There are currently 12 described species of , although some are poorly characterized at the genomic level. Only two genomes of , the type strain CFBP 4178 and strain Ech703, have previously been sequenced. Members of this species are mostly of tropical or subtropical origin. During an investigation of strains present in our laboratory collection we sequenced the atypical strain A3967, registered as CFBP 722, isolated from (tomato) in the South of France in 1965. The genome of strain A3967 shares digital DNA-DNA hybridization and average nucleotide identity (ANI) values of 68 and 96 %, respectively, with the type strain CFBP 4178. However, ANI analysis showed that strains are significantly dissimilar to the other species, such that less than one third of their genomes align to any other genome. On phenotypic, phylogenetic and genomic grounds, we propose a reassignment of to the genus level, for which we propose the name gen. nov., with as the type species and CFBP 4178 (NCPPB 2511) as the type strain. Phenotypic analysis showed differences between strain A3967 and CFBP 4178, such as for the assimilation of melibiose, raffinose and -inositol. These results support the description of two novel species, namely comb. nov. and sp. nov., with CFBP 4178 (NCPPB 2511=LMG 2542) and A3967 (CFBP 8732=LMG 31880) as the type strains, respectively.