Novosphingobium kunmingense sp. nov., isolated from a phosphate mine.

A yellow-pigmented, Gram-stain-negative, strictly aerobic, rod-shaped, round-ended bacterium, designated strain 18-11HKT, was isolated from a phosphate mine situated in the suburb of Kunming in Yunnan province in south-western China. The taxonomic status of this strain was evaluated by using a polyphasic approach. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, strain 18-11HKT was shown to belong to the genus Novosphingobium , showing the highest levels of sequence similarity with respect to ‘Novosphingobium ginsenosidimutans’ FW-6 (97.2 %), Novosphingobium subterraneum DSM 12447T (96.7 %), Novosphingobium aromaticivorans DSM 12444T (96.7 %) and Novosphingobium tardaugens DSM 16702T (96.3 %). Strain 18-11HKT had a genomic DNA G+C content of 65.3 mol% and Q-10 as the predominant respiratory quinone. DNA–DNA hybridizations of strain 18-11HKT with N. subterraneum DSM 12447T, N. aromaticivorans DSM 12444T and N. tardaugens DSM 16702T showed low relatedness values of 29.6, 33.5 and 32.3 %, respectively. The predominant fatty acids of strain 18-11HKT were summed feature 8 (C18 : 1ω7c and/or C18 : 1ω6c), summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c) and C16 : 0, and the major 2-hydroxy fatty acid was C14 : 0 2-OH. The polar lipid profile revealed the presence of sphingoglycolipid, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine and some unidentified lipids. On the basis of its phenotypic properties and phylogenetic distinctiveness, strain 18-11HKT represents a novel species of the genus Novosphingobium , for which the name Novosphingobium kunmingense sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is 18-11HKT ( = CGMCC 1.12274T = DSM 25975T).