Chitinophaga
ginsengihumi sp. nov., isolated from soil of ginseng rhizosphere
A novel strain designated SR18T was isolated from the rhizosphere soil of a ginseng in Korea. Cells were Gram-staining-negative, motile by gliding, catalase-positive and oxidase-negative, non-spore-forming rods. The isolate grew aerobically at 15–45 °C (optimum 28 °C), pH 5.5–7.5 (optimum pH 7.0) and with 0–3.0 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 1.5 % NaCl). Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain SR18T belongs to the genus Chitinophaga with sequence similarity of 97.2 % and 97.0 % to Chitinophaga japonensis 758T and Chitinophaga rupis CS5-B1T, respectively. Similarity to other species of the genus Chitinophaga was 92.8–95.5 %. The predominant menaquinone was MK-7. Major fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0 and C16 : 1ω5c. The polar lipids included phosphatidylethanolamine, unidentified phospholipids, unknown aminolipids and unknown lipids. The genomic DNA G+C content was 45.3 mol%. DNA–DNA relatedness between strain SR18T and C. japonensis NBRC 16041T was 29–32 %. On the basis of polyphasic analysis from this study, strain SR18T represents a novel species of the genus Chitinophaga , for which the name Chitinophaga ginsengihumi sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is SR18T ( = KACC 17604T = NBRC 109832T).