Chitinophaga barathri sp. nov., isolated from mountain soil.

A Gram-stain-negative, non-motile, rod-shaped, aerobic bacterium, designated strain YLT18T, was isolated from mountain cliff soil of Enshi Grand Canyon in China. The major menaquinone was menaquinone 7 (MK-7) and the predominant fatty acids (>5 %) were iso-C15 : 0, C16 : 1ω5c, iso-C17 : 0 3-OH, summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c/iso-C15 : 0 2-OH) and iso-C15 : 0 3-OH. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, two unknown aminophospholipids, two unknown aminolipids and two unknown polar lipids. The DNA G+C content was 55.4 mol%. According to phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences, strain YLT18T was related most closely to Chitinophaga niabensis JS13-10T ( = DSM 24787T) and Chitinophaga cymbidii R156-2T ( = KCTC 23738T), with similarities of 96.7 and 96.2 %, respectively. In addition, strain YLT18T showed obvious differences from the closely related species in terms of esterase (C4) activity, acid production from fructose and rhamnose, and sole carbon source utilization by arabinose and rhamnose. The results from this polyphasic taxonomic study revealed that strain YLT18T represents a novel species of the genus Chitinophaga, for which the name Chitinophaga barathri sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is YLT18T ( = KCTC 42472T = CCTCC AB 2015054T).