Salinimonas lutimaris sp. nov., a polysaccharide-degrading bacterium isolated from a tidal flat.

A Gram-negative, non-motile, non-endospore-forming bacterial strain, designated DPSR-4(T), was isolated from a tidal flat sediment on the southern coast of Korea. Strain DPSR-4(T) grew optimally at 25-30°C, at pH 7.0-7.5 and in the presence of 2% (w/v) NaCl. A Neighbour-Joining phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain DPSR-4(T) clustered with Salinimonas chungwhensis BH030046(T) by a high bootstrap resampling value of 99.7%. Strain DPSR-4(T) exhibited 96.2% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to that of S. chungwhensis BH030046(T) and 93.7-96.6% sequence similarity to the sequences of type strains of Alteromonas species. Strain DPSR-4(T) contained Q-8 as the predominant ubiquinone and iso-C(15:0) 2-OH and/or C(16:1) ω7c, C(16:0) and C(18:1) ω7c as the major fatty acids. The major polar lipids detected in strain DPSR-4(T) and S. chungwhensis KCTC 12239(T) were phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and an unidentified phospholipid. The DNA G+C content was 53.4 mol%. Differential phenotypic properties and phylogenetic distinctiveness of strain DPSR-4(T) demonstrated that this strain is distinguishable from the sole recognized species of the genus Salinimonas, S. chungwhensis. On the basis of phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic data, strain DPSR-4(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Salinimonas, for which the name Salinimonas lutimaris sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is DPSR-4(T) (KCTC 23464(T), CCUG 60743(T)).