Amphritea ceti sp. nov., isolated from faeces of Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas)

A Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-spore-forming, non-flagellated and rod-shaped or ovoid bacterial strain, designated RA1^T, was isolated from faeces collected from Beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) in Yeosu aquarium, South Korea. Strain RA1^T grew optimally at 25 °C, at pH 7.0–8.0 and in the presence of 2.0 % (w/v) NaCl. Neighbour-joining, maximum-likelihood and maximum-parsimony phylogenetic trees based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain RA1^T joins the cluster comprising the type strains of three species of the genus Amphritea, with which it exhibited 95.8–96.0 % sequence similarity. Sequence similarities to the type strains of other recognized species were less than 94.3 %. Strain RA1^T contained Q-8 as the predominant ubiquinone and summed feature 3 (C_{16: 1}ω7c and/or C_{16: 1}ω6c), C_{18: 1}ω7cand C_{16: 0} as the major fatty acids. The major polar lipids of strain RA1^T were phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, two unidentified lipids and one unidentified aminolipid. The DNA G+C content of strain RA1^T was 47.4 mol%. The differential phenotypic properties, together with the phylogenetic distinctiveness, revealed that strain RA1^T is separated from other species of the genus Amphritea. On the basis of the data presented, strain RA1^T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Amphritea, for which the name Amphritea ceti sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is RA1^T (= KCTC 42154^T = NBRC 110551^T).