Chitinophaga flava sp. nov., isolated from monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forest soil

A Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-motile strain, K3CV102501^T, was isolated from a soil sample collected from the monsoon evergreen broad-leaved forest of Dinghushan Biosphere Reserve located in Guangdong Province, PR China. The primal colony of strain K3CV102501^T was very similar to the fruiting body of myxobacteria on the original isolation plates. Young cultures of strain K3CV102501^T contained long (2-4×0.4-0.5 µm) filamentous cells and divided into rod shapes (0.7-1.0×0.6-0.8 µm) after 4 days of incubation at 28 °C. Strain K3CV102501^T grew at pH 6.0-9.5 (optimum, pH 6.5-7.5) and 7-42 °C (optimum, 28-35 °C). Phylogenetic analysis based on its 16S rRNA gene sequence showed that strain K3CV102501^T belonged to the genus Chitinophagaand showed the highest similarity to C.hitinophaga jiangningensis JCM 19354^T (96.9 %). The DNA G+C content of the type strain was 46.6 mol%. The major fatty acids (>10 %) were iso-C15 : 0, C16 : 1ω5c and iso-C17 : 0 3-OH. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine and an unidentified aminolipid. Menaquinone-7 was the predominant quinone. The phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic data clearly showed that strain K3CV102501^T represents a novel species of the genus Chitinophaga, for which the name Chitinophaga flava sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is K3CV102501^T (=KCTC 62435^T=GDMCC 1.1325^T).