Phenylobacterium hankyongense sp. nov., isolated from ginseng field soil

A Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-motile, non-spore-forming and rod-shaped bacterial strain, designated HKS-05^T, was isolated from ginseng field soil. This bacterium was characterized to determine its taxonomic position by using the polyphasic approach. HKS-05^T grew at 10-37 °C and at pH 6.0-8.0 on R2A agar. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, HKS-05^T was shown to represent a member of the family Caulobacteraceaeand to be related to Phenylobacterium lituiforme FaiI3^T (98.1 % sequence similarity), 'Phenylobacterium zucineum' HLK1 (97.9 %), Phenylobacterium muchangponense A8^T (97.7 %), Phenylobacteriumcomposti 4T-6^T (97.2 %) and Phenylobacterium immobile E^T (97.1 %). The major respiratory quinone was Q-10 and the major fatty acids were summed feature 8 (comprising C18 : 1ω7c and/or C18 : 1ω6c), C16 : 0, and summed feature 3 (comprising C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c). The polar lipids were phosphatidylglycerol, unidentified glycolipids and unidentified polar lipids. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 70.4 mol%. DNA-DNA relatedness values between HKS-05^T and its closest phylogenetically neighbours were low. HKS-05^T could be differentiated genotypically and phenotypically from the species of the genus Phenylobacterium with validly published names. The isolate therefore represents a novel species, for which the name Phenylobacteriumhankyongense sp. nov. is proposed, with the type strain HKS-05^T (=KACC 18628^T=LMG 30081^T).