Sphingomonas sabuli sp. nov., a carotenoid-producing bacterium isolated from beach sand

A Gram-stain-negative, aerobic and non-motile bacterium, strain sand1-3(T), was isolated from beach sand collected from Haeundae Beach located in Busan, Republic of Korea. Based on the results of 165 rRNA gene sequence and phylogenetic analyses, Sphingomonas daechungensis CH15-11(T) (97.0%), Sphingomonas edaphi DAC4(T) (96.8%), Sphingomonas xanthus AE3(T) (96.5%) and Sphingomonas oryziterrae YC6722(T) (96.0%) were selected for comparing phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics. Cells of strain sand1-3(T) grew at 7-50 degrees C (optimum, 30-35 degrees C), pH 5.0-8.0 (optimum, pH 7.0-8.0) and in the presence of 0-0.5% (w/v) NaCI (optimum, 0%). Major polar lipids included diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, sphingoglycolipid, one unidentified glycolipid and one unidentified phosphoglycolipid. The major fatty acids were summed feature 8 (C-18.1 omega 6c and/or C-18.1 omega 7c) and C-18.1 2-OH. Moreover, the sole respiratory quinone and major polyamine were identified as ubiquinone-10 and homospermidine, respectively. The genomic DNA G+C content was 65.9 mol%. The digital DNA-DNA hybridization, average nucleotide identity and average amino acid identity values of strain sand1-3(T) and its reference strains with publicly available genomes were 17.9-18.9%, 72.0-75.3% and 63.3-76.5% respectively. Based on polyphasic evidence, we propose Sphingomonas sabuli sp. nov. as a novel species within the genus Sphingomonas. The type strain is sand1-3(T) (=KCTC 82358(T)=NBRC 114538(T)).