Cellulophaga geojensis sp. nov., a member of the family Flavobacteriaceae isolated from marine sand.

A Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-flagellated, non-spore-forming, motile (by gliding) bacterial strain, designated M-M6(T), was isolated from marine sand of Geoje island, Korea. Strain M-M6(T) grew optimally at 25 °C, at pH 7.0-8.0 and in the presence of 2 % (w/v) NaCl. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain M-M6(T) fell within the clade comprising Cellulophaga species, forming a coherent cluster with Cellulophaga lytica ATCC 23178(T) and Cellulophaga fucicola NN015860(T), with which it shared 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities of 98.1 and 98.2 %, respectively. Sequence similarities between strain M-M6(T) and the type strains of other recognized Cellulophaga species were in the range 92.4-93.8 %. Strain M-M6(T) contained MK-6 as the predominant menaquinone and iso-C(15:0), iso-C(15:1) G, iso-C(17:0) 3-OH, and C(16:1)ω7c and/or iso-C(15:0) 2-OH as the major fatty acids. The major polar lipids detected in strain M-M6(T) and the type strains of C. lytica and C. fucicola were two unidentified lipids, one unidentified aminolipid and one unidentified aminophospholipid. The DNA G+C content of strain M-M6(T) was 35.4 mol%. Levels of DNA-DNA relatedness between strain M-M6(T) and C. lytica JCM 8516(T) and C. fucicola JCM 21778(T) were 33 and 35 %, respectively. Differential phenotypic properties and phylogenetic and genetic distinctiveness distinguished strain M-M6(T) from all recognized Cellulophaga species. On the basis of the data presented, strain M-M6(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Cellulophaga, for which the name Cellulophaga geojensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is M-M6(T) ( = KCTC 23498(T) = CCUG 60801(T)).