Novosphingobium lindaniclasticum sp. nov., a hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH)-degrading bacterium isolated from an HCH dumpsite.

A yellow-pigmented, Gram-negative, aerobic, non-motile, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped-bacterium, LE124(T), was isolated from a hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) dumpsite located in Lucknow, India. The type strain LE124(T) grew well with hexachlorocyclohexane as a sole carbon source, degrading it within 24 h of incubation. Phylogenetic analysis of strain LE124(T) showed highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to Novosphingobium barchaimii LL02(T) (98.5%), Novosphingobium panipatense SM16(T) (98.1%), Novosphingobium soli CC-TPE-1(T) (97.9%), Novosphingobium naphthalenivorans TUT562(T) (97.6%), Novosphingobium mathurense SM117(T) (97.5%) and Novosphingobium resinovorum NCIMB 8767(T) (97.5%) and lower sequence similarity (<97%) to all other members of the genus Novosphingobium. The DNA-DNA relatedness between strain LE124(T) and N. barchaimii LL02(T) and other related type strains was found to vary from 15% to 45% confirming that it represents a novel species. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain LE124(T) was 60.7 mol%. The predominant fatty acids were summed feature 8 (C18:1ω7c, 49.1%), summed feature 3 (C16:1ω7c/C16:1ω6c, 19.9%), C16:0 (6.7%), C17:1ω6c (4.9%) and a few hydroxyl fatty acids, C14:0 2-OH (9.4%) and C16:0 2-OH (2.1%). Polar lipids consisted mainly of phosphatidyldimethylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine, sphingoglycolipid and some unidentified lipids. The major respiratory quinone was ubiquinone Q-10. Spermidine was the major polyamine observed. Phylogenetic analysis, DNA-DNA hybridization, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic analysis support the conclusion that strain LE124(T) represents a novel species within the genus Novosphingobium for which we propose the name Novosphingbium lindaniclasticum sp. nov. The type strain is LE124(T) (=CCM 7976(T)=DSM 25409(T)).