Pelagicoccus croceus sp. nov., a novel marine member of the family Puniceicoccaceae within the phylum 'Verrucomicrobia' isolated from seagrass.

An obligately aerobic, spherical, non-motile, pale-yellow pigmented bacterium was isolated from a piece of leaf of seagrass, Enhalus acoroides (L.f.) Royle, grown in Okinawa, Japan and was subjected to a polyphasic taxonomic study. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that the novel isolate N5FB36-5(T) shared approximately 96-98 % sequence similarity with the species of the genus Pelagicoccus of the family Puniceicoccaceae within the phylum 'Verrucomicrobia'. The DNA-DNA relatedness values of strain N5FB36-5(T) with Pelagicoccus mobilis 02PA-Ca-133(T) and Pelagicoccus albus YM14-201(T) were below 70 %, which is accepted as the phylogenetic definition of a novel species. beta-Lactam antibiotic susceptibility test and amino acid analysis of the cell wall hydrolysates indicated the absence of muramic acid and diaminopimelic acid in the cell walls, which suggested that this strain lacks an ordinary Gram-negative type of peptidoglycan in the cell wall. The DNA G+C content of strain N5FB36-5(T) was 51.6 mol%; MK-7 was the major menaquinone; and the presence of C(16 : 0), C(16 : 1)omega7c and anteiso-C(15 : 0) as the major cellular fatty acids supported the identification of the novel isolate as a member of the genus Pelagicoccus. On the basis of polyphasic taxonomic data, it was concluded that this strain should be classified as a novel species of the genus Pelagicoccus, for which the name Pelagicoccus croceus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is N5FB36-5(T) (=MBIC08283(T)=KCTC [corrected] 12903(T)).