Croceicoccus marinus gen. nov., sp. nov., a yellow-pigmented bacterium from deep-sea sediment, and emended description of the family Erythrobacteraceae.

A Gram-negative, aerobic, neutrophilic, coccoid bacterium, strain E4A9T, was isolated from a deep-sea sediment sample collected from the East Pacific polymetallic nodule region. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that the isolate was related to the type strain of Altererythrobacter epoxidivorans (96.0% sequence similarity). Lower 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities were observed with other members of the genera Altererythrobacter (94.7%), Erythrobacter (94.0-95.4%), Erythromicrobium (94.8%) and Porphyrobacter (94.6-95.1%) of the family Erythrobacteraceae. Phylogenetic analysis including all described species of the family Erythrobacteraceae and several members of the family Sphingomonadaceae revealed that the isolate formed a distinct phylogenetic lineage with the family Erythrobacteraceae. Chemotaxonomic analysis revealed ubiquinone-10 as the predominant respiratory quinone, anteiso-C15:0, iso-C14:0 and iso-C15:0 as major fatty acids, and phosphatidylglycerol as the major polar lipid. The DNA G+C content was 71.5 mol%. The isolate contained carotenoids, but no bacteriochlorophyll a. On the basis of phenotypic and genotypic data presented in this study, strain E4A9T represents a novel species in a new genus in the family Erythrobacteraceae for which the name Croceicoccus marinus gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is E4A9T (=CGMCC 1.6776T=JCM 14846T).