Sphingomonas kyeonggiense sp. nov., isolated from soil of a ginseng field

A Gram-staining negative bacterium, THG-DT81^T, which was isolated from soil of a ginseng field, was investigated using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. Cells were oxidase- and catalase-positive, aerobic, rod-shaped and motile with one polar flagellum. Strain THG-DT81^T grew optimally at pH 7.0 and in the absence of NaCl on trypticase soy agar. Its optimum growth temperature was 25–28 °C. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequence showed that strain THG-DT81^T belongs to the family Sphingomonadaceae and was related to Sphingomonas pituitosa EDIV^T (98.0 % similarity), S. leidyi ATCC 15260^T (97.8 %), S. trueperi LMG 2142^T (97.1 %), S. azotifigens NBRC 15497^T (97.1 %), S. koreensis JSS26 ^T (97.1 %) and S. dokdonensis DS-4^T (97.0 %). Strain THG-DT81^T contained Q-10 as the predominant ubiquinone and C_18:1 ω7c and C_16:0 as the major fatty acids. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was determined to be 66.8 mol %. The major component in the polyamine pattern was identified as sym-homospermidine. The major polar lipids detected in strain THG-DT81^T were sphingoglycolipid, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylcholine. The DNA–DNA relatedness values of the strain THG-DT81^T and its closest phylogenetically neighbors were below 21 %. The phenotypic characteristics and genotypic data demonstrated the affiliation of strain THG-DT81^T to the genus Sphingomonas. On the basis of the polyphasic taxonomic data presented, strain THG-DT81^T is described as a novel species of genus Sphingomonas, for which the name Sphingomonas kyeonggiense sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is THG-DT81^T (= KACC 17173^T = JCM 18825^T).