Arcticibacter svalbardensis gen. nov., sp. nov., of the family Sphingobacteriaceae in the phylum Bacteroidetes, isolated from Arctic soil.

In the course of a study aimed at isolating bacteria from Arctic soils by a method that selectively enriches for rare bioactive actinomycetes, a Gram-stain-negative, pigmented, non-motile rod, designated MN12-7(T), was isolated. The salmon-pink strain was, based on 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, found to be affiliated with the family Sphingobacteriaceae. Strain MN12-7(T) was catalase-, oxidase- and cellulase-positive and lacked gelatinase, urease, lipase and pectinase. The predominant cellular fatty acids were summed feature 3 (comprising C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c), iso-C15 : 0 and C15 : 1ω6c. The major respiratory quinone of strain MN12-7(T) was MK-7, and the major polar lipid was phosphatidylethanolamine in addition to phosphatidylserine, seven unidentified lipids and six unidentified aminolipids. The DNA G+C content of strain MN12-7(T) was 38 mol%. Strain MN12-7(T) formed a separate lineage in a cluster containing 'Candidatus comitans', with which it shared 92.3 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity. Based on the phenotypic characteristics and phylogenetic inference, strain MN12-7(T) is proposed as a representative of a novel species in a new genus, Arcticibacter svalbardensis gen. nov., sp. nov. The type strain of the type species is MN12-7(T) ( = KCTC 32015(T) = CIP 110422(T)).