Erythrobacter marinus sp. nov., isolated from seawater

Gram-negative, non-motile, ovoid to rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain HWDM-33T, was isolated from seawater of the Yellow Sea, Korea, and was subjected to a polyphasic taxonomic study. Strain HWDM-33^T grew optimally at pH 7-8, at 25°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 HWDM-33^T clustered with Erythrobacter gangjinensis K7-2^T, with which it shared 96.9% sequence similarity. Strain HWDM-33^T exhibited 94.2-95.8% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to the type strains of other recognized species of the genus Erythrobacter. Strain HWDM-33^T contained Q-10 as the predominant ubiquinone and C_{18: 1}ω7c, C_{17: 1}ω 6c, and C_{16: 1}ω 7c and/or iso-C_{15: 0} 2-OH as the major fatty acids. The major polar lipids were sphingoglycolipid, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine and an unidentified lipid. The DNA G+C content of strain HWDM-33^T was 66.1 mol%. Differential phenotypic properties and phylogenetic distinctiveness demonstrated that strain HWDM-33^T was separate from E. gangjinensis and other recognized species of the genus Erythrobacter. On the basis of the data presented here, strain HWDM-33^T represents a novel species of the genus Erythrobacter, for which the name Erythrobacter marinus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HWDM-33^T (=KCTC 23554^T=CCUG 60528^T).