A novel nitrate-and selenite reducing bacterium strain ZYK(T) was isolated from a rice paddy soil in Dehong, Yunnan, China. Strain ZYK(T) is a facultative anaerobe and grows in up to 150, 000 ppm O-2. The comparative genomics analysis of strain ZYK(T) implies that it shares more orthologues with B. subtilis subsp. subtilis NCIB 3610(T) (ANIm values, 85.4-86.7%) than with B. azotoformans NBRC 15712(T) (ANIm values, 84.4-84.7%), although B. azotoformans NBRC 15712(T) (96.3% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity) is the closest Bacillus species according to 16S rRNA gene comparison. The major cellular fatty acids of strain ZYK(T) were iso-C-14: 0 (17.8%), iso-C-15: 0 (17.8%), and C-16: 0 (32.0%). The polar lipid profile consisted of phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and an unidentified aminophospholipid. Based on physiological, biochemical and genotypic properties, the strain was considered to represent a novel species of the genus Bacillus, for which the name Bacillus oryziterrae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is ZYK(T) (= DSM 26460T = CGMCC 1.5179T). Strain ZYK(T) can reduce nitrate to nitrite and ammonium and possesses metabolic genes for nitrate reduction including nar, nap and nrf. Biogenic selenium nanoparticles of strain ZYK(T) show a narrow size distribution and agree with the gaussian distribution. These selenium nanoparticles show significant dose-dependent inhibition of the lung cancer cell line H157, which suggests potential for application in cancer therapy.