sp. nov., a new member of the group isolated from medicinal plant .

A Gram-stain-positive, endospore-forming endophytic bacterial strain designated MHSD28 was isolated from surface-sterilized leaves of collected from Eisleben, Botlokwa, Limpopo Province, South Africa. The phenotypic and phylogenetic characteristics of strain MHSD28 were consistent with those of members within the group. Comparative analysis between this strain and its relatives confirmed that it belongs to this group and forms a monophyletic branch. The digital DNA-DNA hybridization values between strain MHSD28 and its relatives were lower than the 70 % threshold for species delineation. To further determine its phylogenetic position, multi-locus sequence analysis (MLSA) based on five concatenated housekeeping gene (, , , and ) sequences, phenotypic analysis, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) biotyper identification, fatty acid and polar lipid profile analyses were carried out. Phenotypic characterization, MLSA, whole genome sequence based analyses and MALDI-TOF results placed strain MHSD28 within the group. The major fatty acids were iso-C and summed feature 3 and the main polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylethanolamine. The respiratory quinone was menaquinone-7. The cell-wall peptidoglycan structure included -diaminopimelic acid. Considering the above results, strain MHSD28 represents a novel species of the group, for which the name sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MHSD28 (=BD 2262=LMG 32287=CECT 30671).