Lewinella aquimaris sp. nov., isolated from seawater

A Gram-staining-negative, oval- or rod-shaped, non-motile bacterial strain, designated HDW-36T, was isolated from seawater off the Korean peninsula. Strain HDW-36T was found to grow optimally at pH 7.0-8.0, at 25 °C and in the presence of 2-3 % (w/v) NaCl. A neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain HDW-36T falls within the clade comprising thespecies of the genus Lewinella, clustering with the type strains of Lewinella xylanilytica and Lewinella marina, with which it exhibited 95.9 % and 95.2 % sequence similarity values, respectively. The 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity values between strain HDW-36T and type strains of other species of the genus Lewinella were 88.4-92.8 %. Strain HDW-36T was found to contain MK-7 as the predominant menaquinone and summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω6c and/or C16 : 1ω7c), iso-C15 : 0 and C16 : 0 as the major fatty acids. The major polar lipids were identified as phosphatidylethanolamine and an unidentified lipid. The DNA G+C content of strain HDW-36T was determined to be 60.9 mol%. Differential phenotypic properties, together with the phylogenetic distinctiveness, demonstrate that strain HDW-36T is distinguishable from other species of the genus Lewinella. On the basis of the data presented, strain HDW-36T is considered to represent a novel species, for which the name Lewinella aquimaris sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Lewinella aquimaris is HDW-36T (=KCTC 42719T=CECT 8901T).