Proposal of Litorimonas haliclonae sp. nov., isolated from a marine sponge of the genus Haliclona.

Abstract

A bright-orange-pigmented, Gram-stain-negative, motile, and rod-shaped bacterium, strain MAA42T, was isolated from a marine sponge of the genus Haliclona, which is in long-time culture in a marine aquarium system at the Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. The strain grew at 4-34 °C (optimum 28 °C), in the presence of 0.5-9.5 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 3.5 %) and at pH 4.5-10.0 (optimum pH 7.5). Strain MAA42T shared the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity (98.1 %) with the type strain of Litorimonas taeanensis. Sequence similarities to all other closely related type strains were below 97 %. DNA-DNA hybridization of strain MAA42T with L. taeanensis DSM 22008T resulted in values of 4.7 % (reciprocal 17.7 %). Major cellular fatty acids of strain MAA42T were C18 : 1ω7c (66.2 %), C18 : 1 2-OH (17.4 %), and C18 : 0 (14.1 %). Spermidine was predominant in the polyamine pattern, and ubiquinone Q-10 was the major respiratory quinone. The polar lipid profile contained the major compounds phosphatidylglycerol, monoglycosyldiglyceride, three unidentified phospholipids, and one unidentified glycolipid. Glucuronopyranosyldiglyceride was present as a minor compound. The diagnostic diamino acid of the peptidoglycan was meso-diaminopimelic acid. The genomic DNA G+C content was 52.8 mol%. Based on the genotypic, chemotaxonomic, and phenotypic analyses, strain MAA42T represents a novel species of the genus Litorimonas, for which the name Litorimonas haliclonae is proposed. The type strain is MAA42T (=CCM 8709T=CIP 111178T=LMG 29765T).