A report on 17 unrecorded bacterial species in Korea isolated from Lakes Soyang and Chungju in 2016

As a part of the research program 'Survey of freshwater organisms and specimen collection', freshwater samples were collected from Lakes Soyang and Chungju in 2016. Hundreds of bacterial strains were isolated from the samples and were identified based on 16S rRNA gene sequences. Among the bacterial isolates, strains showing higher than 98.7% sequence similarity with validly published bacterial species not reported in Korea were selected as unrecorded bacterial species. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, 17 strains were identified as unrecorded bacterial species in Korea. The 17 bacterial strains were phylogenetically diverse and belonged to four phyla, seven classes, 13 orders, 14 families, and 16 genera. At generic level, the unreported species were affiliated with Caulobacter, Paracoccus, and Mesorhizobium of the class Alphaproteobacteria, Deefgea, Undibacterium, Chitinimonas, Inhella, and Sphaerotilus of the class Betaproteobacteria, Vibrio and Cellvibrio of the class Gammaproteobacteria, Sanguibacter and Clavibacter of the phylum Actinobacteria, Lactococcus of the phylum Firmicutes, Deinococcus of the class Deinococci, and Chryseobacterium and Flavobacterium of the phylum Bacteroidetes. The unreported species were further characterized by examining Gram reaction, colony and cell morphology, biochemical properties, and phylogenetic position. The detailed description of the 17 unreported species are also provided.