Gaetbulicola byunsanensis gen. nov., sp. nov., isolated from tidal flat sediment

A Gram-negative, non-motile and pleomorphic bacterial strain, SMK-114^T, which belongs to the class Alphaproteobacteria, was isolated from a tidal flat sample collected in Byunsan, Korea. Strain SMK-114^T grew optimally at pH 7.0-8.0 and 25-30 °C and in the presence of 2% (w/v) NaCl. A neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain SMK-114^T formed a cluster with Octadecabacter species, with which it exhibited 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity values of 95.2-95.4 %. This cluster was part of the clade comprising Thalassobius species with a bootstrap resampling value of 76.3 %. Strain SMK-114^T exhibited 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity values of 95.1-96.3% to members of the genus Thalassobius. It contained Q-10 as the predominant ubiquinone and C_18:1ω7c as the major fatty acid. The DNA G+C content was 60.0 mol%. On the basis of phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic data, strain SMK-114^T is considered to represent a novel species in a new genus for which the name Gaetbulicola byunsanensis gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Gaetbulicola byunsanensis is SMK-114^T (=KCTC 22632^T =CCUG 57612^T).