Sphingobacterium rhinopitheci sp. Nov., isolated from the faeces of Rhinopithecus bieti in China

A novel bacterium, WQ 047^T, was isolated from the faeces of Rhinopithecus bieti, a highly endangered primate endemic to China. The cells were aerobic, oval/rod-shaped, Gram-stain-negative, non-motile, catalase positive, and produced yellow pigmented colonies on Columbia Agar. The taxonomic position of WQ 047^T was clarified by applying a polyphasic study based on 16S rRNA gene sequence phylogenetic analysis, extensive biological typing, and whole genome sequencing. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that stain WQ 047^T belonged to the genus Sphingobacterium and its 16S rRNA gene sequence exhibited 96.47% pairwise similarity with that of the closest relatives Sphingobacterium nematocida M-SX103^T. The calculated whole genome average nucleotide identity (ANI) value between strain WQ 047^T and strain M-SX103 was 72.3%. The digital DNA-DNA hybridization value of strain WQ 047^T and M-SX103^T was 15.73%, which was obtained by calculating the genome-to-genome distance. The major fatty acids were C_15:0 iso, C_17:0 iso 3-OH, Summed Feature 3 (C_16:1 ω7c/C_16:1 ω6c) and Summed feature 9 (iso-C_17:1ω9c and/or 10-methyl C_16:0). The predominant polar lipids were PE, PL and APL. MK-7 was the predominant menaquinone. The G + C content of WQ 047^T was 34.89 mol% according to genome analysis. All these characteristics were consistent with those of the genus of Sphingobacterium. Therefore, based on these results, we propose a novel species for which the name Sphingobacterium rhinopitheci sp. Nov. is proposed, with the type strain WQ 047^T (= CCTCC AA 2020026^T = KCTC82393^T).