Characterization of four novel bacterial species of the genus Sphingomonas, Sphingomonas anseongensis , Sphingomonas alba , Sphingomonas brevis and Sphingomonas hankyongi sp.nov., isolated from wet land.

Four novel bacterial strains, designated as RG327, SE158, RB56-2 and SE220, were isolated from wet soil in the Republic of Korea. To determine their taxonomic positions, the strains were fully characterized. On the basis of genomic information (16S rRNA gene and draft genome sequences), all four isolates represent members of the genus . The draft genomes of RG327, SE158, RB56-2 and SE220 consisted of circular chromosomes of 2 226 119, 2 507 338, 2 593 639 and 2 548 888 base pairs with DNA G+C contents of 64.6, 63.6, 63.0 and 63.1 %, respectively. All the isolates contained ubiquinone Q-10 as the predominant quinone compound and a fatty acid profile with C, Cω6, C 2-OH summed feature 3 (Cω7/Cω6c) and summed feature 8 (Cω/Cω6) as the major fatty acids, supporting the affiliation of strains RG327, SE158, RB56-2 and SE220 to the genus . The major identified polar lipids in all four novel isolates were phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, sphingoglycolipid and phosphatidylcholine. Moreover, the physiological, biochemical results and low level of DNA-DNA relatedness and average nucleotide identity values allowed the phenotypic and genotypic differentiation of RG327, SE158, RB56-2 and SE220 from other species of the genus with validly published names and indicated that they represented novel species of the genus , for which the names sp. nov. (RG327 = KACC 22409 = LMG 32497), sp. nov. (SE158 = KACC 224408 = LMG 324498), (RB56-2 = KACC 22410 = LMG 32496) and sp. nov., (SE220 = KACC 22406 = LMG 32499) are proposed.