Croceicoccus ponticola sp. nov., a lipolytic bacterium isolated from seawater

A lipolytic, Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-motile and coccoid, ovoid or rod-shaped bacterial strain, designated GM-16^T, was isolated from seawater around Pohang in the Republic of Korea. Strain GM-16^T grew optimally at 30 °C and in the presence of 1.0-2.0 % (w/v) NaCl. The neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree of 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain GM-16^T fell within the clade comprising the type strains of Croceicoccus species. Strain GM-16^T exhibited the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity (97.7 %) to the type strain of Croceicoccus pelagius and sequence similarities of 96.3-96.7 % to the type strains of the other Croceicoccus species. Strain GM-16^T contained Q-10 as the predominant ubiquinone and C18 : 1ω7c and summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c) as major fatty acids. The major polar lipids of strain GM-16^T were phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, sphingoglycolipid and one unidentified glycolipid. The DNA G+C content of strain GM-16^T was 62.6 mol%. The mean DNA-DNA relatedness value between strain GM-16^T and C. pelagius DSM 101479^T was 16 %. The average nucleotide identity values between strain GM-16^T and the type strains of C.roceicoccus pelagius, C.roceicoccus marinus, C.roceicoccus naphthovorans and C.roceicoccus mobilis were 83.96-84.44 %. The phylogenetic and genetic data and differential phenotypic properties indicated that strain GM-16^T is separated from recognized Croceicoccus species. On the basis of the data presented here, strain GM-16^T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Croceicoccus, for which the name Croceicoccus ponticola sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is GM-16^T (=KACC 19611^T=KCTC 62423^T=NBRC 113192^T).