Sphingobacterium changzhouense sp. nov., a bacterium isolated from a rice field

A Gram-stain-negative, yellow, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium, designated N7^T, was isolated from a soil sample collected from a rice field in Jiangsu, China, and was characterized using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. Strain N7^T grew optimally at 25–30 °C, pH 6.0–8.0, and in the presence of 1 % NaCl (w/v). 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated that strain N7^T was a member of the genus Sphingobacterium and was closely related to Sphingobacterium multivorum IAM14316^T (97.49 %) and Sphingobacterium canadense CR11^T (97.11 %), sharing less than 97 % sequence similarities with other species of the genus Sphingobacterium. The predominant respiratory quinone of strain N7^T was MK-7 and major fatty acids were summed features 3 (C_16 : 1ω6c and/or C_16 : 1ω7c), iso-C_15 : 0, C_16 : 0 and iso-C_17 : 0 3-OH. The G+C content of the DNA was 40.9±0.5 mol%. The levels of DNA–DNA relatedness between strain N7^T and the most closely related species S. multivorum IAM 14316^T and S. canadense CR11^T were 21 % and 15 %, respectively. Based on these results, strain N7^T is proposed to represent a separate species within the genus Sphingobacterium. The name Sphingobacterium changzhouense sp. nov. is suggested and the type strain is N7^T ( = CCTCC AB 2012100^T = KACC 16854^T).