A marine strain of flavobacteriaceae utilizes brown seaweed fucoidan

Fucoidan, a mixture of sulfated fucose-containing polysaccharides, was prepared from Kjellmaniella crassifolia (class Phaeophyceae, order Laminariales, family Laminariaceae) with a yield of about 3.8% dry weight. To isolate enzymes that degrade fucoidan, we first screened marine bacteria for their ability to utilize fucoidan, and isolated one strain of Flavobacteriaceae from seawater that could do this. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S ribosomal DNA sequence suggested that this strain appeared to belong to a new genus, and was tentatively named Fucobacter marina. The strain utilized L-fucose (17%), D-mannose (91%), D-galactose (46%), and D-glucuronic acid (66%) in the fucoidan from K. crassifolia. The strain partially utilized fucoidan from 2 other seaweeds that belong to the order Laminariales, Undaria pinnatifida (10%) and Lessonia nigrescens (48%).