| Sphingomonas elodea | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Bacteria |
| Kingdom: | Pseudomonadati |
| Phylum: | Pseudomonadota |
| Class: | Alphaproteobacteria |
| Order: | Sphingomonadales |
| Family: | Sphingomonadaceae |
| Genus: | Sphingomonas |
| Species: | S. elodea |
| Binomial name | |
| Sphingomonas elodea Vartak et al., 1995 [1] | |
| Synonyms | |
Pseudomonas elodea Kang et al., 1982 | |
Sphingomonas elodea is a species of bacteria in the genus Sphingomonas .
This species is important to humans due to the fact that it produces gellan gum, a suitable agar substitute as a gelling agent in various clinical bacteriological media [2] and especially important for the culture growth of thermophilic microorganisms in solid media. [3] When the gellan gum-producing bacterium was first isolated from a natural lily pond it was classified as Pseudomonas elodea based on the taxonomic classification of that time. [4] However, the gellan gum-producing bacterium was subsequently re-classified as Sphingomonas elodea based on the current taxonomic classification. [5]
Sphingomonas elodea metabolizes maltodextrin (oligosaccharides of glucose) externally into glucose by the putative exo-acting glucosidase. [6] Sphingomonas elodea utilizes the Entner-Doudoroff pathway for glucose metabolism. [5]