Thermomonas koreensis sp. nov., a mesophilic bacterium isolated from a ginseng field.

A Gram-negative, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped, motile bacterium, strain Ko06(T), was isolated from soil from a ginseng field in South Korea and was characterized in order to determine its taxonomic position. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain Ko06(T) belongs to the Gammaproteobacteria, and the highest levels of sequence similarity were with Thermomonas brevis LMG 21746(T) (98.4 %), Thermomonas fusca LMG 21737(T) (97.7 %), Thermomonas haemolytica A50-7-3(T) (96.5 %) and Thermomonas hydrothermalis SGM-6(T) (95.8 %). Chemotaxonomic data revealed that strain Ko06(T) possesses ubiquinone Q-8 and that the predominant fatty acids are C(15 : 0) iso, C(11 : 0) iso and C(11 : 0) iso 3-OH, all of which corroborated assignment of the strain to the genus Thermomonas. The results of DNA-DNA hybridization and physiological and biochemical tests clearly demonstrated that strain Ko06(T) represents a distinct species. On the basis of these data, strain Ko06(T) (=KCTC 12540(T)=NBRC 101155(T)) should be classified as the type strain of a novel Thermomonas species, for which the name Thermomonas koreensis sp. nov. is proposed.