Sphingomonas alpina sp. nov., a psychrophilic bacterium isolated from alpine soil.

An aerobic, Gram-negative-staining, motile, psychrophilic bacterium, designated strain S8-3(T), was isolated from alpine soil. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain S8-3(T) was related to the genus Sphingomonas and had highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity with Sphingomonas oligophenolica S213(T) (98.0%). 16S RNA gene sequence similarity between strain S8-3(T) and Sphingomonas paucimobilis ATCC 29837(T) (the type species of the genus Sphingomonas) was 93.0%. Strain S8-3(T) contained Q-10 as the ubiquinone and C(18:1)ω7c (65.0%) and C(14:0) 2-OH (13.4%) as the dominant fatty acids (>10%). The major polyamines were the triamine sym-homospermidine and spermidine. The polar lipid profile contained sphingoglycolipid, phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine. The DNA G+C content was 64.1 mol%. Combined data from phenotypic, phylogenetic and DNA-DNA relatedness studies demonstrated that strain S8-3(T) is a representative of a novel species of the genus Sphingomonas, for which the name Sphingomonas alpina sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is S8-3(T) (=DSM 22537(T)=LMG 26055(T)).