Hwanghaeicola aestuarii gen. nov., sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from a tidal flat of the Yellow Sea

Abstract

A moderately halophilic Gram-staining-negative bacterium, designated strain Y26T, was isolated from a tidal flat of Taean coast in South Korea. Cells were strictly aerobic, motile cocci with a single flagellum and showed catalase- and oxidase-positive reactions. Growth of strain Y26T was observed at 15–35 °C (optimum 25–30 °C), pH 6.0–8.0 (optimum pH 6.5–7.5) and with 1.5–6.0 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 2.0–3.0 %). The predominant fatty acids were C18 : 1 ω7c (66.2 %), C16 : 0 (12.4 %) and C10 : 0 3-OH (5.0 %) and the G+C content of the genomic DNA was 61.0 mol%. Strain Y26T contained ubiquinone-10 (Q-10) as the major respiratory quinone. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain Y26T formed a distinct phyletic lineage from other genera within the Roseobacter clade of the class Alphaproteobacteria and was most closely related to members of the genera Maribius, Maritimibacter and Palleronia with 93.8–94.6 % sequence similarity. On the basis of chemotaxonomic data and molecular properties, strain Y26T represents a novel genus, Hwanghaeicola, within the family Rhodobacteraceae, for which the name Hwanghaeicola aestuarii gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is Y26T (=KACC 13705T =DSM 22009T).