Sphingobium nicotianae sp. nov., isolated from tobacco soil

Bacterial strain H33^T was isolated from tobacco plant soil and was characterized using a polyphasic taxonomy approach. Strain H33^T was a Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped, non-motile and strictly aerobic bacterium. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences and coding sequences of the up-to-date bacterial core gene set (92 protein clusters) indicated that H33^T belongs to the genus Sphingobium. Strain H33^T showed the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to Sphingobium xanthum NL9^T (97.2%) and showed 72.3-80.6 % average nucleotide identity and 19.7-29.2 % digital DNA-DNA hybridization identity with the strains of other species of the genus Sphingobium. Strain H33^T grew optimally at 30°C, pH 7 and could tolerate 0.5 % (w/v) NaCl. The isoprenoid quinones were ubiquinone-9 (64.1%) and ubiquinone-10 (35.9%). Spermidine was the major polyamine. The major fatty acids of H33^T were summed feature 8 (C_18 : 1  ω7c and/or C_18 : 1  ω6c). The polar lipid profile consisted of a mixture of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylmethylethanolamine, sphingoglycolipid, two unidentified lipids, two unidentified glycolipids, two unidentified aminoglycolipids and an unidentified phospholipid. The genomic DNA G+C content of H33^T was 64.9 mol%. Based on the phylogenetic and phenotypic data, H33^T was considered a representative of a novel species in the genus Sphingobium. We propose the name Sphingobium nicotianae sp. nov., with H33^T (=CCTCC AB 2022073^T=LMG 32569^T) as the type strain.