Reclassification of type strains of Rhizobium indigoferae and Sinorhizobium kummerowiae into the species Rhizobium leguminosarum and Sinorhizobium meliloti , respectively

The species and were isolated from legume nodules and the 16S rRNA sequences of their respective type strains, CCBAU 71042 and CCBAU 71714 , were highly divergent from those of the other species of the genera and , respectively. However, the 16S rRNA gene sequences obtained for strains CCBAU 71042 and CCBAU 71714 several years after description, were different from the original ones, showing 100 % similarity to the type strains of and , respectively. Phylogenetic analyses of two housekeeping genes, and , confirmed the high phylogenetic closeness of strains CCBAU 71042 and CCBAU 71714 to the respective type strains of and . In the present work, we compared the genomes of the type strains of and available in several culture collections with those of the respective type strains of and , some of them obtained in this study. The calculated average nucleotide identity-blast and digital DNA-DNA hybridization values in both cases were higher than those recommended for species differentiation, supporting the proposal for the reclassification of the type strains of and into the species and , respectively.