Altererythrobacter aestiaquae sp. nov., isolated from seawater

A Gram-stain-negative, coccoid- or oval-shaped, gliding bacterial strain, designated HDW-31(T), belonging to the class Alphaproteobacteria, was isolated from seawater of the Yellow Sea, Korea, and was subjected to a taxonomic study using a polyphasic approach. Strain HDW-31(T) grew optimally at pH 7.0-8.0, at 30 °C and in the presence of 2-3 % (w/v) NaCl. Neighbour-joining, maximum-likelihood and maximum-parsimony phylogenetic trees based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain HDW-31(T) fell within the clade comprising the genus Altererythrobacter, clustering with the type strains of Altererythrobacter luteolus and Altererythrobacter gangjinensis, with which strain HDW-31(T) exhibited 97.0 and 96.0 % sequence similarity values, respectively. Sequence similarities to the type strains of the other recognized species of the genus Altererythrobacter were 93.5-96.0 %. The DNA G+C content was 57.9 mol% and mean DNA-DNA relatedness between strain HDW-31(T) and the type strain of A. luteolus was 5.3 %. Strain HDW-31(T) contained Q-10 as the predominant ubiquinone and summed feature 8 (C18 : 1ω7c and/or C18 : 1ω6c), summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω6c and/or C16 : 1ω7c) and C16 : 0 as the major fatty acids. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, a sphingoglycolipid, two unidentified glycolipids and an unidentified lipid. Differential phenotypic properties, together with the phylogenetic and genetic distinctiveness, demonstrated that strain HDW-31(T) is distinguishable from recognized species of the genus Altererythrobacter. On the basis of the data presented, strain HDW-31(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Altererythrobacter, for which the name Altererythrobacter aestiaquae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HDW-31(T) ( = KCTC 42006(T) = CECT 8527(T)).