gen. nov., sp. nov., isolated from maize root rhizosphere.

A facultative anaerobic, Gram-stain-positive, endospore-forming bacterium, isolated from the rhizosphere of maize roots (), was taxonomically studied. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity comparisons, strain JJ-79 clustered only loosely with species and showed the highest similarity to (97.9%). The 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities to the sequences of the type strains of other species were 97.5 % and below. Chemotaxonomic features supported the grouping of the strain to the group, e.g. the major fatty acids were C anteiso, C iso and C, the polar lipid profile contained the major components diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and an unidentified glycolipid, the major quinone was menaquinone MK-7, and major compound in the polyamine pattern was spermidine. However, the JJ-79 genome assembly did not share most of the 11 conserved signature indels that are indicative of the genus . The average nucleotide identity, average amino acid identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridization values between the JJ-79 genome assembly and those of the closest relative type strains were <71, <71 and <25 %, respectively. Physiological and biochemical test results were also different from those of the most closely related species. As a consequence, JJ-79 represents a novel genus for which we propose the name gen. nov., sp. nov., with JJ-79 (=CIP 111885=CCM 9045) as the type strain.