Salegentibacter maritimus sp. nov., isolated from marine coastal sediment

Two bacterial strains were isolated from a marine sediment sample taken from Jingzi Wharf, Weihai, China. These two strains were characterized at the phenotypic, chemotaxonomic, and genomic level. The two strains possessed almost identical 16S rRNA gene sequences (99.9 %). However, RAPD-PCR fingerprint patterns discriminated that they were not from one clonal origin. The average nucleotide identity (ANI) value and the digital DNA-DNA hybridization (dDDH) value between the two strains were 98.3 % and 85.4 %, respectively, suggestingthat they belonged to the same species. On the basis of the result of phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequences, the two strains belonged to the genus Salegentibacter and were closely related to S. holothuriorum KCTC 12371^T (98.6 %) and S. salegens DSM 5424^T (98.2-98.3 %). The ANI and dDDH clearly separated strains F63223^T and F60176 from the the most related type strains with values below the thresholds for species. The genome sizes of strains F63223^T and F60176 were approximate 3.89 and 3.59 Mbp, respectively. The strain F63223^T had 3,335 predicted genes with DNA G + C content of 35.6 %. The major respiratory quinone was MK-6 and the major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine and one unidentified lipid. According to the results of the phenotypic, chemotaxonomic characterization, phylogenetic classification and genome analysis, the two isolates could be considered to represent a novel species of the genus Salegentibacter, for which the name Salegentibacter maritimus sp. nov., is proposed, with F63223^T (=MCCC 1H00433^T = KCTC 82417^T) as the type strain.