Thalassobaculum litoreum gen. nov., sp. nov., a member of the family Rhodospirillaceae isolated from coastal seawater.

A Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic strain with slightly curved and straight rod-shaped cells, strain CL-GR58(T), was isolated from coastal seawater (near Gori, Korea). Analyses of the 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that strain CL-GR58(T) belonged to the family Rhodospirillaceae with Azospirillum lipoferum as its closest relative (gene sequence similarity of 90.9 %). Phylogenetic analyses of the 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain CL-GR58(T) was not associated with any known genera in the family Rhodospirillaceae. The novel strain grew in the presence of 1-10 % sea salts, optimally at 30-35 degrees C and pH 8. The major cellular fatty acids consisted of C(18 : 1)omega7c (48.5 %), C(16 : 0) (14.8 %), C(17 : 0) (12.2 %), C(19 : 0) cyclo omega8c (6.3 %) and summed feature 3 (C(16 : 1)omega7c and/or iso-C(15 : 0) 2-OH, 6.0 %). Among the phylogenetically related genera, the fatty acid C(17 : 0) was found only in strain CL-GR58(T). The DNA G+C content of the novel strain was 68.0 mol%. According to phylogenetic analyses of the 16S rRNA gene sequence, fatty acid content and the physiological data, strain CL-GR58(T) represents a novel species in a new genus of the family Rhodospirillaceae, for which the name Thalassobaculum litoreum gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of the type species is CL-GR58(T) (=KCCM 42674(T)=DSM 18839(T)).