Photobacterium aquae sp. nov., isolated from a recirculating mariculture system

A Gram-staining-negative, heterotrophic, facultatively anaerobic bacterium, designated AE6(T), was isolated from a grouper (Epinephelus malabaricas) culture tank in a recirculating mariculture system located in Tianjin, China. Strain AE6(T) was able to grow at 15-40 °C (optimum, 30-35 °C), at pH 5.5-10.0 (optimum, pH 7.0-7.5) and in the presence of 0.5-7% (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 2-3%). It contained Q-8 as the predominant respiratory quinone, phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylglycerol (PG) as the major polar lipids and C(16 : 1)ω7c/C(16 : 1)ω6c (40.4%), C(18 : 1)ω7c (15.5%) and C(16 : 0) (13.5%) as the predominant cellular fatty acids. The genomic DNA G+C content was 47.1 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain AE6(T) belonged to the genus Photobacterium (94.2-96.8% of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity) and formed a distinct phylogenetic lineage within the genus and exhibited the highest sequence similarity to Photobacterium aphoticum CECT 7614(T) (96.8%). Multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) using four loci (gyrB, rpoA, pyrH and recA) also revealed that strain AE6(T) was phylogenetically related to the genus Photobacterium. Based on the phylogenetic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic evidence, strain AE6(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Photobacterium, for which the name Photobacterium aquae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is AE6(T) ( = CGMCC 1.12159(T) = JCM 18480(T)).