Edaphocola aurantiacus gen. nov., sp. nov., a new member of the family Chitinophagaceae isolated from wetland soil in South Korea.

A short rod-shaped, yellow-orange pigmented, strictly aerobic bacterium, designated as strain H2, was isolated from the wetland soil of Halla Mountain, Jeju-island, South Korea. Growth was observed at temperatures of 10-30 °C (optimum at 25-30 °C), pH of 6-8 (optimum at pH 7), and salt concentrations of 0-1% (w/v) NaCl (optimum at 0%). The strain H2 was found to be a catalase and oxidase-positive, non-motile, Gram-negative bacterium. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity and phylogenetic analysis, strain H2 was found to be related to the members of the Chitinophagaceae family, being closely related to Taibaiella chishuiensis AY17 (94.3% sequence similarity). The major polar lipids are phosphatidylethanolamine and glycolipid. Strain H2 contained MK-7 as the only menaquinone as well as iso-C, iso-C G and iso-C 3-OH as the major fatty acids (> 15%). The DNA G+C content of strain H2 was determined to be 48.3 mol%. Based on the phylogenetic, phenotypic characteristics and chemotaxonomic analysis data, strain H2 (= KCTC 62115 = JCM 32353) should be classified as representative of a novel species of a novel genus within the family Chitinophagaceae, for which the name Edaphocola aurantiacus gen. nov., sp. nov., is proposed.