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

A Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-motile strain, K3CV102501T, 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 K3CV102501T was very similar to the fruiting body of myxobacteria on the original isolation plates. Young cultures of strain K3CV102501T 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 K3CV102501T 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 K3CV102501T belonged to the genus Chitinophagaand showed the highest similarity to C.hitinophaga jiangningensis JCM 19354T (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 K3CV102501T represents a novel species of the genus Chitinophaga, for which the name Chitinophaga flava sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is K3CV102501T (=KCTC 62435T=GDMCC 1.1325T).