Duganella callida sp. Nov., a novel addition to the duganella genus, isolated from the soil of a cultivated maize field

A Gram-negative, rod-shaped bacterium, strain Duganella callida DN04^T, was isolated from the soil of a maize field in North Carolina, USA. Based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence, the most similar Duganella species are D. sacchari Sac-22^T, D. ginsengi-soli DCY83^T, and D. radicis Sac-41^T with a 97.8, 97.6, or 96.9% sequence similarity, respectively. We compared the biochemical phenotype of DN04^T to D. sacchari Sac-22^T and D. zoogloeoides 115^T and other reference strains from different genera within the Oxalobacteraceae and while the biochemical profile of DN04^T is most similar to D. sacchari Sac-22^T and other Duganella and Massilia strains, there are also distinct differences. DN04^T can for example utilize turanose, N-acetyl-d-glucosamine, inosine, and l-pyroglutamic acid. The four fatty acids found in the highest percentages were C_15:0 iso (24.6%), C_15:1 isoG (19.4%), C_17:0 iso3-OH (16.8%), and summed feature 3 (C_16:1 ⍵7c and/or C_16:1 ⍵6c) (12.5%). We also applied whole genome sequencing to determine if DN04^T is a novel species. The most similar AAI (average amino acid identity) score was 70.8% (Massilia plicata NZ CP038026^T), and the most similar ANI (average nucleotide identity) score was 84.8% (D. radicis KCTC 22382^T), which indicates that DN04^T is a novel species. The genome-to-genome-distance calculation (GGDC) revealed a DDH of 28.3% to D. radicis KCTC 22382^T, which is much lower than the new species threshold. Based on the morphological, phenotypic, and genomic differences, we propose Duganella callida sp. nov. as a novel species within the Duganella genus (type strain DN04^T=NRRL B-65552^T=LMG 31736^T).