Pseudomonas knackmussii sp. nov.

The taxonomic position of Pseudomonas sp. B13(T), isolated as a 3-chlorobenzoate-degrading organism and used for several groundbreaking studies on the enzymology and genetics of the degradative pathway for haloaromatic compounds, was studied in detail. The previously performed physiological studies, the detection of ubiquinone Q-9, the polyamine pattern with putrescine and spermidine as major polyamines, a fatty acid profile with C(18 : 1)omega7c, summed feature 3 and C(16 : 0) as quantitatively the most important constituents and the 16S rRNA gene sequence demonstrated that Pseudomonas sp. B13(T) indeed belongs to the genus Pseudomonas. The sequence of the Pseudomonas sp. B13(T) 16S rRNA gene demonstrated a high degree of similarity with that of Pseudomonas citronellolis DSM 50332(T) (98.9 %), Pseudomonas nitroreducens DSM 14399(T) (98.7 %), Pseudomonas jinjuensis DSM 16612(T) (98.1 %) and Pseudomonas multiresinivorans DSM 17553(T) (98.7 %). Thus it was shown that strain Pseudomonas sp. B13(T) can be distinguished from related species by the ability/inability to assimilate N-acetylgalactosamine, d-galactose, putrescine, trans-aconitate and mesaconate and some differences in the fatty acid profile. The positioning of Pseudomonas sp. B13(T) as a separate taxon was finally verified by DNA hybridization, which demonstrated less than 45 % DNA-DNA similarity between strain Pseudomonas sp. B13(T) and the reference strains. On the basis of these results, Pseudomonas sp. B13(T) represents a novel species for which the name Pseudomonas knackmussii sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is B13(T) (=DSM 6978(T)=LMG 23759(T)).