Lewinella agarilytica sp. nov., a novel marine bacterium of the phylum Bacteroidetes, isolated from beach sediment.

A Gram-negative, aerobic, light-orange-coloured, marine bacterium (designated SST-19(T)) was isolated from beach sediment in Jeju, Korea, and its taxonomic position was determined by means of a polyphasic approach. In a neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences, strain SST-19(T) was positioned within the family 'Saprospiraceae', class Sphingobacteria, and formed a consistent cluster with Lewinella persica ATCC 23167(T) (94.7 % sequence similarity). The levels of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity between the isolate and recognized members of the family ranged from 84 to 89 %, with Lewinella cohaerens ATCC 23123(T), Lewinella nigricans ATCC 23147(T), Haliscomenobacter hydrossis DSM 1100(T) and Saprospira grandis ATCC 23119(T) showing values of 89.0 , 88.4 , 86.4 and 84.1 %, respectively. Strain SST-19(T) required seawater for growth and its cells were unbranched, flexible rods or filaments with gliding motility. The cellular fatty acids consisted mainly of saturated, unsaturated and iso-branched fatty acids, the major components being C(16 : 1)omega7c and/or iso-C(15 : 0) 2-OH (24.1 %), C(18 : 0) (13.5 %), iso-C(15 : 0) (11.1 %) and C(16 : 0) (10.9 %). The G+C content of the DNA was found to be 51.3 mol%. On the basis of the results from phenotypic and phylogenetic analyses, the isolate represents a novel species of the genus Lewinella, for which the name Lewinella agarilytica sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is SST-19(T) (=JBRI 2009(T)=KCTC 12774(T)=JCM 14216(T)).