A yellow-pigmented, Gram-stain-negative, strictly aerobic, rod-shaped, round-ended bacterium, designated strain 18-11HK(T), was isolated from a phosphate mine situated in the suburb of Kunming in Yunnan province in south-western China. The taxonomic status of this strain was evaluated by using a polyphasic approach. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, strain 18-11HK(T) was shown to belong to the genus Novosphingobium, showing the highest levels of sequence similarity with respect to 'Novosphingobium ginsenosidimutans' FW-6 (97.2%), Novosphingobium subterraneum DSM 12447(T) (96.7%), Novosphingobium aromaticivorans DSM 12444(T) (96.7%) and Novosphingobium tardaugens DSM 16702(T) (96.3%). Strain 18-11HK(T) had a genomic DNA G+C content of 65.3 mol% and Q-10 as the predominant respiratory quinone. DNA-DNA hybridizations of strain 18-11HK(T) with N. subterraneum DSM 12447(T), N. aromaticivorans DSM 12444(T) and N. tardaugens DSM 16702(T) showed low relatedness values of 29.6, 33.5 and 32.3%, respectively. The predominant fatty acids of strain 18-11HK(T) were summed feature 8 (C18 : 1ω7c and/or C18: 1ω6c), summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c) and C16 : 0, and the major 2-hydroxy fatty acid was C14 : 0 2-OH. The polar lipid profile revealed the presence of sphingoglycolipid, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine and some unidentified lipids. On the basis of its phenotypic properties and phylogenetic distinctiveness, strain 18-11HK(T) represents a novel species of the genus Novosphingobium, for which the name Novosphingobium kunmingense sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is 18-11HK(T) ( = CGMCC 1.12274(T) = DSM 25975(T)).
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