A taxonomic study was carried out on strain GCS-AE-31(T), which was isolated from a phenol-degrading consortium, enriched from coking wastewater activated sludge of the Beijing Shougang Company Limited during the screening of phenol-degrading bacteria. Cells of strain GCS-AE-31(T) were Gram-stain-negative, short rods, motile by gliding, oxidase- and catalase-positive. Growth was observed at salinities of 0-3% and at temperatures of 10-37 °C. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, strain GCS-AE-31(T) was most closely related to Pedobacter saltans LMG 10337(T) (96.17%), but it showed low similarity to all other species of the genus Pedobacter (89.28-92.45%). It also showed low 16S rRNA gene similarity to all other species of the family Sphingobacteriaceae (87.25-92.45%) examined. The dominant fatty acids were iso-C(15 : 0), summed feature 3 (C(16 : 1)ω7c/C(16 : 1)ω6c), anteiso-C(15 : 0) and iso-C(17 : 0) 3-OH. The menaquinones were MK-7 (95.5%) and MK-6 (4.5%). The polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, three aminolipids and three unknown phospholipids. Sphingolipid was present. The G+C content of the chromosomal DNA was 36.2 mol%. According to its phylogenetic position and phenotypic traits, the novel strain could not be assigned to the genus Pedobacter; it should be classified as representing a novel species of a novel genus in the family Sphingobacteriaceae, for which the name Pseudopedobacter beijingensis gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed (type strain GCS-AE-31(T) = MCCC 1A01299(T) = CGMCC 1.12329(T) = LMG 27180(T)). The misclassified species Pedobacter saltans is transferred to the novel genus as Pseudopedobacter saltans comb. nov. (type strain LMG 10337(T) = MCCC 1A06472(T) = DSM 12145(T) = CCUG 39354(T) = CIP 105500(T) = JCM 21818(T) = NBRC 100064(T)).
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