Facivitalis istanbulensis gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel member of the family Sphingomonadaceae with the potential for aromatic-degradation isolated from Jet A1 fuel

Abstract

A novel gram-stain-indeterminate, rod-shaped, endospore-forming, motile, aerobic bacterium, designated JETA1-E2^T, was isolated from aircraft fuel Jet A1 sample. The strain showed high pairwise similarity values of partial 16S rRNA gene sequences to Sphingomonas paucimobilis (MT367853) (99.42%), Sphingomonas sanguinis (MF319771) (99.34%), and Sphingomonas pseudosanguinis (HE716953) (99.27%) within the family Sphingomonadaceae. However, API test results revealed that the strain JETA1-E2^T differed from these type strains. The phylogenetic tree based on the whole genome and the phylogenomic tree generated with the UBCG tool showed that the strain JETA1-E2^T formed a distinct monophyletic clade within the family Sphingomonadaceae, and clustered distantly with the genera Sphingomonas and Sphingobium. The predominant respiratory quinone is Q-10. The major fatty acids are C_16:0 and summed feature 8 (C_18:1ω7c and/or C_18:1ω6c). C_19:0 is present in small amounts. The polar lipids are diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, aminophospholipid, unidentified glycolipid, and two unidentified sphingoglycolipids. The only polyamine is putrescine in minor amounts. The DNA G + C content of the type strain is 66.5 mol%. Several unique genes in the strain JETA1-E2^T may contribute to fight against various stressors, virulence and pathogenicity, as well as survival in challenging conditions. The strain JETA1-E2^T contains 100 of the characterised proteins available in the HADEG database of which 58% of these are involved in metabolic process of aromatics degradation. The findings indicate that the strain JETA1-E2^T has the potential to metabolise hydrocarbons such as fuel, especially aromatic compounds. Based on the results of polyphasic taxonomic analyses, the strain JETA1-E2^T represents a novel species in a new genus in the family Sphingomonadaceae for which the name Facivitalis istanbulensis gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Facivitalis istanbulensis is JETA1-E2^T (DSM 117971^T = LMG 33634^T = KUEN 1206 (B) F3-1-1^T).