sphingomonas elodea sphingomonas elodea sphingomonas elodea is a species of bacteria in the genus sphingomonas. sphingomonas elodea scientific classification domain: bacteria phylum: pseudomonadota class: alphaproteobacteria order: sphingomonadales family: sphingomonadaceae genus: sphingomonas species: sphingomonas elodea binomial name sphingomonas elodeavartak et al., 1995 synonyms pseudomonas elodea kang et al., 1982 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 and especially important for the culture growth of thermophilic microorganisms in solid media. 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. however, the gellan gum-producing bacterium was subsequently re-classified as sphingomonas elodea based on the current taxonomic classification. sphingomonas elodea metabolizes maltodextrin (oligosaccharides of glucose) externally into glucose by the putative exo-acting glucosidase. sphingomonas elodea utilizes the entner-doudoroff pathway for glucose metabolism.