sp. nov., a novel endophytic, N fixing, plant growth promoting isolated from oil palm ().

A novel strain S29 with high nitrogen fixing ability was isolated from surface-sterilized leaf tissues of oil palm () growing in Science Park II, Singapore. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene analysis and multilocus sequence typing with the and genes, strain S29 was a member of the genus , with ATCC 27989 and LS 8 as its closest relatives. Unique biochemical features that differentiated strain S29 from its closest relatives were the ability to utilize melibiose, -cyclodextrin, glycogen, adonital, d-arabitol, -inositol and xylitol. The major fatty acids were C, C, C, C 5c and summed feature 2 containing C 7c and/or C 6c. The polar fatty acid profile consisted of phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, an unidentified aminophospholipid and aminolipids. The draft genome of strain S29 comprised 5, 284, 330 bp with a G + C content of 52.6 %. The average nucleotide identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridization values between strain S29 and the phylogenetically related species were lower than 95 % and 70 %, respectively. Thus, the polyphasic evidences generated through the phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genomic methods confirmed that strain S29 represents a novel species of the genus , for which we propose the name sp. nov. with the type strain of S29 (=DSM 27342=KACC 17598).