A yellow-pigmented, Gram-negative, rod-shaped, non-spore-forming bacterium, strain CC-TPE-1 T , was isolated from oil-contaminated soil near an oil refinery located in Kaohsiung County, Taiwan. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis of strain CC-TPE-1 T showed highest sequence similarity to Novosphingobium naphthalenivorans TUT562 T (98.1 %), N. panipatense SM16 T (97.9 %) and N. mathurense SM117 T (97.6 %) and lower (,97 %) sequence similarity to all other Novosphingobium species. DNA-DNA hybridizations of strain CC-TPE-1 T with N.naphthalenivorans DSM 18518 T , N. panipatense SM16 T and N. mathurense SM117 T showed low relatedness of 30 % (reciprocal 35 %), 29.1 % (reciprocal 30.6 %) and 35 % (reciprocal 23.6 %), respectively. The major respiratory quinone was ubiquinone Q-10, the predominant fatty acid was C 18 : 1 v7c (49.9 %) and three 2-hydroxy fatty acids, C 14 : 0 2-OH (8.2 %), C 15 : 0 2-OH (2.45 %) and C 16 : 0 2-OH (1.05 %), were detected. Polar lipids consisted mainly of phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidyldimethylethanolamine, two sphingoglycolipids, phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine and several unidentified lipids, and a yellow pigment was also detected. The polyamine pattern contained the single major compound spermidine. Characterization by 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, physiological parameters, pigment analysis and polyamine, ubiquinone, polar lipid and fatty acid compositions revealed that strain CC-TPE-1 T represents a novel species of the genus Novosphingobium, for which we propose the name Novosphingobium soli sp. nov., with the type strain CC-TPE-1The genus Novosphingobium was proposed as a consequence of the dissection of the genus Sphingomonas (Yabuuchi et al., 1990), which was based on phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic analyses (Takeuchi et al., 2001). At the time of writing, 18 Novosphingobium species have been described with validly published names: the type species Novosphingobium capsulatum (Yabuuchi et al., 1990), N. rosa (Takeuchi et al., 1995) Abbreviations: pNA, p-nitroanilide; pNP, p-nitrophenyl.

A motile, Gram-negative, pinkish red-pigmented bacterium (strain CC-Hsuan-617 T ) was isolated from an oil-contaminated soil near an oil refinery located in Kaohsiung County, Taiwan. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain CC-Hsuan-617T clustered with Algoriphagus mannitolivorans (97.5 % sequence similarity), Algoriphagus aquatilis (98.0 %) and Algoriphagus boritolerans (97.5 %), followed by Algoriphagus ornithinivorans (97.1 %) and Algoriphagus alkaliphilus (97.1 %). The fatty acid profile of the novel strain was slightly different from those reported for recognized Algoriphagus species. The quinone system contained menaquinone MK-7 as the predominant component. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, an unknown polar lipid, an unknown phospholipid and an unknown aminophospholipid. The main cell polyamine was sym-homospermidine; lesser amounts of spermine and spermidine were also found. The results of DNA-DNA hybridization, and physiological and biochemical tests allowed the genotypic and phenotypic differentiation of strain CC-Hsuan-617 T from recognized Algoriphagus species. Strain CC-Hsuan-617