Flavicella marina gen. nov., sp. nov., a carotenoid-producing bacterium from surface seawater

A Gram-stain-negative, non-motile, mesophilic, aerobic, rod-shaped or spherical bacterium, strain 2A-7(T), was isolated from surface seawater at Muroto city, Kochi prefecture, Japan. The strain produced a pigment(s), the absorption spectrum of which closely resembled that of β-carotene. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that the strain fell within the family Flavobacteriaceae and clustered distantly with the type strains of species of the genus Lutibacter (up to 93.9 % similarity). The DNA G+C content was 34.1 mol%. The major fatty acids were summed feature 3 (iso-C15 : 0 2-OH and/or C16 : 1ω7c), iso-C17 : 0 3-OH and iso-C15 : 0 3-OH. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine and three unidentified lipids. Menaquinone 6 was detected as the sole isoprenoid quinone. On the basis of phenotypic, genotypic and chemotaxonomic data, strain 2A-7(T) represents a novel genus and species, for which the name Flavicella marina gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Flavicella marina is 2A-7(T) ( = NBRC 110145(T) = KCTC 42197(T)).