Ehrlichia minasensis sp. nov., isolated from the tick Rhipicephalus microplus

Recently, we obtained a rickettsial isolate ( sp. UFMG-EV ) from the haemolymph of engorged tick females. On the basis of maximum-likelihood phylogenetic analysis using 16S rRNA gene, , , and sequences we showed that sp. UFMG-EV belongs to the , family , genus . sp. UFMG-EV is a sister taxon of with 16S rRNA gene, , , and sequence similarities of 98.3 %, 97.2 %, 94.7 %, 94.3 % and 49.1 %, respectively. sp. UFMG-EV has been maintained in the laboratory by continuous passage in the IDE8 tick cell line where the ultrastructure was characterized using electron microscopy and was found to resemble that of , and , but not and . We propose the name sp. nov. for this bacterium to acknowledge the place from where it was initially isolated, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The type strain is strain sp. UFMG-EV ( = DSM 100393 = TCB-TBB-0018 ).