f Sphingopyxis solisilvae sp. nov., isolated from forest soil

A yellow-coloured, Gram-staining-negative, motile and rod shaped bacterium, designated strain R366T, was isolated from forest soil of Kyonggi University, South Korea. It was able to grow at 15–42 °C, pH 6.0–10.0 and with 0–4 % (w/v) NaCl concentration. Based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain R366T belongs to the genus Sphingopyxis and is closely related to Sphingopyxis italica SC13E-S71T (98.72 % sequence similarity), Sphingopyxis chilensis S37T (98.51 %), Sphingopyxis fribergensis Kp5.2T (98.29 %), Sphingopyxis alaskensis RB2256T (98.15 %), Sphingopyxis ginsengisoli Gsoli 250T (98.15 %) and Sphingopyxis taejonensis JSS54T (98.01 %). The predominant respiratory quinone was ubiquinone-10, and the major polyamine was spermidine. The polar lipid profile revealed the presence of phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine and sphingoglycolipid. The predominant fatty acids of strain R366T were summed feature 8 (C_18 : 1ω7c and/or C_18 : 1ω6c), summed feature 3 (C_16 : 1ω7c and/or C_16 : 1ω6c), C_17 : 1ω6c, C_16 : 0, C_18 : 1ω7c 11-methyl and C_14 : 0 2-OH. The genomic DNA G+C content of this novel strain was 65.1 mol%. The DNA–DNA relatedness between strain R366T and Sphingopyxis italica DSM 25229T, Sphingopyxis chilensis KCCM 41918T, Sphingopyxis alaskensis KCCM 41983T, Sphingopyxis ginsengisoli KACC 13918T and Sphingopyxis taejonensis KACC 12341T was 51.7, 45.3, 39.0, 41.3 and 44.7 %, respectively. The morphological, physiological, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic analyses clearly distinguished this strain from its closest phylogenetic neighbours. Thus, strain R366T represents a novel species of the genus Sphingopyxis , for which the name Sphingopyxis solisilvae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is R366T (=KEMB 9005-451T=KACC 19003T=JCM 31675T).