Maritimibacter harenae sp. nov. and Sneathiella litorea sp. nov.: members of Alphaproteobacteria isolated from sea sand.

Abstract

Two Gram-negative, rod bacteria, strains DP07T and DP05T, showing catalase- and oxidase-positive activities, were isolated from sea sand in South Korea. Strain DP07T was strictly aerobic and had a yellow colony colour. Contrastingly, strain DP05T was facultatively aerobic and had a creamy colony colour. Both strains contained ubiquinone-10 as the sole isoprenoid quinone. Strain DP07T contained cyclo-C19:0 ω8c, C16:0, summed feature 8 (comprising C18:1 ω7c and/or C18:1 ω6c), and C16:0 2-OH as the major fatty acids and phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, an unidentified phospholipid, and an unidentified polar lipid as the major polar lipids. Strain DP05T contained C16:0, cyclo-C19:0, and summed feature 8 (comprising C18:1 ω7c and/or C18:1 ω6c) as the major fatty acids and phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, an unidentified aminophospholipid, and two unidentified polar lipids as the major polar lipids. Cadaverine was detected as the predominant polyamine in both strains. The DNA G + C contents of strains DP07T and DP05T were 66.1mol% and 51.8mol%, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strains DP07T and DP05T formed close phylogenetic lineages with Maritimibacter alkaliphilus HTCC2654T (similarity, 98.1%) and Sneathiella chungangensis CAU 1294T (similarity, 98.5%), respectively. The average nucleotide identity and DNA-DNA hybridisation values between strain DP07T and M. alkaliphilus were 80.0% and 23.0%, respectively, and those between strain DP05T and S. chungangensis were 77.1% and 19.9%, respectively. Based on the results of phenotypic, chemotaxonomic, and molecular analyses, strains DP07T and DP05T represent two novel species of the genera Maritimibacter and Sneathiella, respectively, for which we propose the following names: Maritimibacter harenae sp. nov. and Sneathiella litorea sp. nov. The type strains of M. harenae and S. litorea were DP07T (= KACC 21429T = JCM 33811T) and DP05T (= KACC 21431T = JCM 33810T), respectively.