Emendation of the genus Sphingomonas Yabuuchi et al. 1990 and junior objective synonymy of the species of three genera, Sphingobium, Novosphingobium and Sphingopyxis, in conjunction with Blastomonas ursincola.

Sphingomonas aerophila sp. nov. and Sphingomonas naasensis sp. nov., isolated from air and soil, respectively

“…Recently, Caulobacter leidyi was reclassified as Sphingomonas leidyi (Chen et al, 2012). However, Yabuuchi et al (2002) suggested that there was no phenotypic and phylogenetic evidence to divide the genus Sphingomonas into the four separate genera, and that all four genera and another closely related genus, Blastomonas, should remain as one genus, Sphingomonas. At present, all four genus names except for the genus Blastomonas are still used.…”

Sphingomonas alpina sp. nov., a psychrophilic bacterium isolated from alpine soil

“…The genus Sphingomonas was first proposed by Yabuuchi et al (1990) and has been emended subsequently by Takeuchi et al (1993Takeuchi et al ( , 2001, Yabuuchi et al (2002) and Busse et al (2003) to accommodate aerobic, Gramnegative and non-spore-forming bacteria that are characterized chemotaxonomically by the absence of 3-hydroxy fatty acids and by the presence of 2-hydroxymyristic acid (C 14 : 0 2-OH), Q-10 as the respiratory quinone and symhomospermidine as the key polyamine. So far, the nomenclature of Takeuchi et al (2001) is generally used (Busse et al, 2003).…”

Proposal to reclassify [Sphingomonas] xenophaga Stolz et al. 2000 and [Sphingomonas] taejonensis Lee et al. 2001 as Sphingobium xenophagum comb. nov. and Sphingopyxis taejonensis comb. nov., respectively

“…The taxonomic positioning of the species Sphingomonas ursincola (synonym Blastomonas ursincola; Hiraishi et al, 2000) and Sphingomonas suberifaciens (Yabuuchi et al, 1999) has been debated in the past. These two species have been reported to show some characteristics of the sphingomonads, such as ubiquinone 10, the presence of spermidine and glycosphingolipids (Yabuuchi et al, 2002); however, phylogenetic analysis reveals that the two species do not fall in any cluster of the four sphingomonad genera and form distinct sublines (Fig. 1).…”

“…The genus is a dynamic group of bacterial isolates with respect to taxonomy and phylogeny, metabolic diversity and the ability to produce extracellular gellan-like polysaccharides (sphingans). Although members of the genus Sphingomonas have created much interest for biotechnological applications in the fields of novel catalysts, bioremediation, fossil fuel desulfurization, novel enzymes and biotin and polysaccharide production (Sutherland, 1999), reorganization of the genus Sphingomonas has also long been a subject of discussion for many taxonomists Yabuuchi et al, 2002). Many Gram-negative organisms previously classified as members of the genera Beijerinckia (Khan et al, 1996), Flavobacterium (Yabuuchi et al, 1990) and Pseudomonas (Yrjala et al, 1998), and even Grampositive organisms from the genus Arthrobacter, have been reclassified as members of the genus Sphingomonas.…”