Novosphingobium malaysiense sp. nov. isolated from mangrove sediment

A novel bacterium, strain MUSC 273^T, was isolated from mangrove sediments of the Tanjung Lumpur river in the state of Pahang in peninsular Malaysia. The bacterium was yellow-pigmented, Gram-negative, rod-shaped and non-spore-forming. The taxonomy of strain MUSC 273^T was studied by a polyphasic approach and the organism showed a range of phenotypic and chemotaxonomic properties consistent with those of the genus Novosphingobium. The 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain MUSC 273^T showed the highest sequence similarity to those of Novosphingobium indicum H25^T (96.8 %), N. naphthalenivorans TUT562^T (96.4 %) and N. soli CC-TPE-1^T (95.9 %) and lower sequence similarity to members of all other species of the genus Novosphingobium. Furthermore, in phylogenetic analyses based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence, strain MUSC 273^T formed a distinct cluster with members of the genus Novosphingobium. DNA-DNA relatedness of strain MUSC 273^T to the type strains of the most closely related species, N. indicum MCCC 1A01080^T and N. naphthalenivorans DSM 18518^T, was 29.2 % (reciprocal 31.0 %) and 17 % (reciprocal 18 %), respectively. The major respiratory quinone was ubiquinone Q-10, the major polyamine was spermidine and the DNA G+C content was 63.3±0.1 mol%. The polar lipids consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylmethylethanolamine, phosphatidyldimethylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine and sphingoglycolipid. The major fatty acids were C_{18: 1}ω7c, C_{17: 1}ω6c, C_{16: 0}, C_{15: 0} 2-OH and C_{16: 1}ω7c. Comparison of BOX-PCR fingerprints indicated that strain MUSC 273^T represented a unique DNA profile. The combined genotypic and phenotypic data showed that strain MUSC 273^T represents a novel species of the genus Novosphingobium, for which the name Novosphingobium malaysiense sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MUSC 273^T (= DSM 27798^T = MCCC 1A00645^T = NBRC 109947^T).