Novosphingobium taihuense sp. nov., a novel aromatic-compound-degrading bacterium isolated from Taihu Lake, China

Abstract

A novel aromatic-compound-degrading bacterium, strain T3-B9T, was isolated from sediment of Taihu Lake, Jiangsu Province, south-east China. This bacterial isolate assimilated several aromatic compounds such as phenol, aniline, nitrobenzene, 4-chloronitrobenzene and phenanthrene. The taxonomy of strain T3-B9T was studied by polyphasic methods. The organism showed a range of phenotypic and chemotaxonomic properties consistent with those of the genus Novosphingobium. The 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of strain T3-B9T to members of the genus Novosphingobium ranged from 91·6 to 97·5 %, and this isolate clustered phylogenetically with members of genus Novosphingobium. The DNA–DNA relatedness values of strain T3-B9T to the most phylogenetically related species, Novosphingobium subterraneum DSM 12447T, Novosphingobium aromaticivorans ATCC 700278T and Novosphingobium stygium ATCC 700280T, were 31, 33 and 14 %, respectively. The combined genotypic and phenotypic data show that strain T3-B9T represents a novel species of the genus Novosphingobium, for which the name Novosphingobium taihuense sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is T3-B9T (=AS 1.3432T=JCM 12465T).