- Volume 72, Issue 3, 2022

Through bacterial plant–endophyte extraction from rhizomes of Iris germanica plant, a Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, catalase- and oxidase-positive gammaproteobacterial strain, referred to as FIT28T, was isolated. FIT28T shows vigorous growth on nutrient rich media within the temperature range of 4–35 °C, with optimal growth at 28 °C, a wide pH tolerance from pH 5 to 11, and salt tolerance up to 6 % (w/v) NaCl. Colonies are white-yellow and quickly become mucoid. The results of analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence placed the strain within the genus Pseudomonas, and multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) using 16S rRNA, rpoB, gyrB and rpoD concatenated sequences revealed that the closest relatives of FIT28T are Pseudomonas zeae OE48.2T, 'Pseudomonas crudilactis' UCMA 17988, Pseudomonas tensinigenes ZA5.3T, Pseudomonas helmanticensis OHA11T, Pseudomonas baetica a390T, Pseudomonas iridis P42T, Pseudomonas atagonensis PS14T and Pseudomonas koreensis Ps 9-14T, within the Pseudomonas koreensis subgroup of the Pseudomonas fluorescens lineage. The genome size of FIT28T is about 6.7 Mb with 59.09 mol% DNA G+C content. Average nucleotide identity (ANI) and digital DNA–DNA hybridization (dDDH) values calculated from the genomic sequences of FIT28T, and the closely related P. zeae OE48.2T are 95.23 and 63.4 %, respectively. Biochemical, metabolic and chemotaxonomic studies further support our proposal that Pseudomonas germanica sp. nov., should be considered a novel species of the genus Pseudomonas. Hence, the type strain FIT28T (=LMG 32353T=DSM 112698T) has been deposited in public cell-type culture centres.