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 16S 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 °C (optimum, 30–35 °C), pH 5.0–8.0 (optimum, pH 7.0–8.0) and in the presence of 0–0.5 % (w/v) NaCl (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 ω6 c and/or C 18 : 1 ω7 c ) 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 ).