Novosphingobium clariflavum sp. nov., isolated from a household product plant.

A Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped, bright-yellow-pigmented bacterium, designated 164T, was isolated from a used sponge for equipment cleaning at a household product plant in China. The 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons indicated that strain 164T was most closely related to Novosphingobium panipatense DSM 22890T (98.28 % similarity) and shared sequence similarities of 97.73–98.27 % with other members of the genus Novosphingobium . In DNA–DNA hybridization studies the relatedness between strain 164T and its closest phylogenetic neighbours was <70 %, which indicated that strain 164T represented a novel species of the genus Novosphingobium . The DNA G+C content of strain 164T was 65.9 mol%. The major respiratory quinone was ubiquinone Q-10 (83.5 %) with minor amounts of Q-9 (16.5 %). The polar lipid profile included diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidyldimethylethanolamine, sphingoglycolipid, phosphatidylcholine, unidentified aminolipids and unidentified aminophospholipids. Spermidine was the major polyamine. The major fatty acids were summed feature 8 (consisting of C18 : 1ω7c and/or C18 : 1ω6c) and C14 : 0 2-OH. The results obtained from phylogenetic analysis, DNA–DNA hybridization, and chemotaxonomic and phenotypic analysis support the conclusion that strain 164T represents a novel species of the genus Novosphingobium , for which the name Novosphingobium clariflavum sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is 164T (=CICC 11035sT=DSM 103351T).