Sphingomonas lutea sp. nov., isolated from freshwater of an artificial reservoir.

An aerobic, Gram-stain-negative, gliding and yellow-pigmented bacterium, designated strain JS5T, was isolated from freshwater of Juam reservoir, Republic of Korea. Cells were catalase-positive and oxidase-negative. The neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain JS5T forms an independent lineage within the genus Sphingomonas. Strain JS5T was related distantly to 'Sphingomonas parvus' GP20-2 (98.2 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity), Sphingomonas sediminicola Dae 20T (96.8 %) and Sphingomonas daechungensis CH15-11T (96.7 %). The major fatty acids of strain JS5T were C16 : 0, summed feature 3 comprising C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c and summed feature 8 comprising C18 : 1ω7c and/or C18 : 1ω6c. The predominant isoprenoid quinone of the isolate was ubiquinone-10. The DNA G+C content of strain JS5T was 65 mol%. Phenotypic characteristics distinguished strain JS5T from related species of the genus Sphingomonas. On the basis of the evidence presented in this study, a novel species, Sphingomonaslutea sp. nov., is proposed to accommodate strain JS5T (=KCTC 23642T=JCM 18309T).