Sphingobacterium cavernae sp. nov., a novel bacterium isolated from soil sampled at Tiandong Cave

A Gram-stain-negative, non-motile and rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain 5.0403-2 , was isolated from a cave soil sample collected from Tiandong Cave, Guizhou Province, south-west PR China. Cells showed positive oxidase and catalase reactions. The predominant isoprenoid quinone was MK-7. The major fatty acids were identified as iso-C , summed feature 3 (C ω7 and/or C ω6 ), iso-C 3OH and summed feature 9 (iso-C ω9 or C 10-methyl). The cellular polar lipids contained phosphatidylethanolamine, one unidentified phospholipid, three unidentified phosphoglycolipids and four unidentified lipids. The genomic DNA G+C content was 36.0 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain 5.0403-2 should be assigned to the genus . Results of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity analysis showed that strain 5.0403-2 was most similar to KCTC 52685 (98.7 %), KCTC 12578 (98.0 %) and DSM 22362 (97.3 %) and less than 95.0 % similar to other species of the genus . The average nucleotide identity values between strain 5.0403-2 and KCTC 52685 , KCTC 12578 and DSM 22362 were 94.2, 82.3 and 77.2 % respectively. The digitalDNA-DNA hybridization values between strain 5.0403-2 and KCTC 52685 , KCTC 12578 and DSM 22362 were 68.4, 25.6 and 20.7 %. These results indicated that the isolate represented a novel genomic species. The polyphasic taxonomic characteristics indicated that strain 5.0304-2 represents a novel species of the genus , for which the name sp. nov. (type strain 5.0403-2 =KCTC 62981 =CCTCC AB 2019257 ) is proposed.