Zunongwangia pacifica sp. nov., isolated from surface seawater of the Western Pacific Ocean

Abstract

Zunongwangia is a group of marine bacteria with important industrial application potential and ecological functions. In this study, a Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped, non-motile, strictly aerobic and bright yellow pigmented bacterial strain within this genus, designated C2-37M9T, was isolated from a surface seawater sample from the Philippine Basin in the Western Pacific Ocean. Strain C2-37M9T grew at 10–44 °C (optimum, 28–30 °C), pH 6–9 (pH 7) and in the presence of 0–12 % NaCl (w/v; 2–3 %). Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that it belonged to the genus Zunongwangia and had 95.7–98.7 % sequence similarity to all type strains of this genus, with the highest value corresponding to Zunongwangia profunda (98.7 %). Digital DNA–DNA hybridization, average nucleotide identity and average amino acid identity values between strain C2-37M9T and all valid type strains were 27.5–32.3, 83.8–86.7 and 86.9–89.0 %, respectively. The principal fatty acids (>5 %) were iso-C15 : 0, iso-C17 : 0 3-OH, anteiso-C15 : 0, summed feature 9 (C16 : 0 10-methyl and/or iso-C17 : 1  ω9c), iso-C15 : 1 G and summed feature 3 (C16 : 1  ω6c and/or C16 : 1  ω7c). The predominant respiratory quinone was MK-6. The polar lipids were one phosphatidylethanolamine, two unknown glycolipids, three unidentified aminolipids and six unidentified lipids. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain C2-37M9T was 36.7 mol%. Based on phylogenetic results and genomic-based relatedness indices, as well as phenotypic and genotypic characteristics, strain C2-37M9T represents a novel species within the genus Zunongwangia , for which the name Zunongwangia pacifica sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is C2-37M9T (=MCCC M21534T=KCTC 82852T).