Serinicoccus chungangensis sp. nov., isolated from tidal flat sediment, and emended description of the genus Serinicoccus.

A Gram-positive, halophilic bacterium, strain CAU 9536(T), was isolated from a tidal flat sediment in the Yellow Sea, Republic of Korea. Strain CAU 9536(T) grew optimally at 30 °C, at pH 9.0 and in the presence of 13.0 % (w/v) NaCl. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain CAU 9536(T) belonged to the genus Serinicoccus, and showed sequence similarity levels of 99.0 % to Serinicoccus profundi MCCC 1A05965(T) and 98.0 % to Serinicoccus marinus JC1078(T). DNA-DNA relatedness values between strain CAU 9536(T) and the above two type strains were below 45.0 %. The cell-wall peptidoglycan of strain CAU 9536(T) was based on meso-diaminopimelic acid, in contrast to those of S. profundi and S. marinus. The polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylinositol. Whole-cell hydrolysates contained mainly glucose and ribose. The major isoprenoid quinone was menaquinone MK-8 (H(4)), and the predominant cellular fatty acid was iso-C(15 : 0). The DNA G+C content of strain CAU 9536(T) was 73.5 mol%. Based on phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genotypic data, strain CAU 9536(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Serinicoccus, for which the name Serinicoccus chungangensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is CAU 9536(T) ( = KCTC 19774(T) = CCUG 59777(T)).