Oceanicola litoreus sp. nov., an alphaproteobacterium isolated from the seashore sediment.

A Gram-negative, non-motile, facultatively aerobic and rod-shaped bacterial strain, designated M-M22(T), was isolated from seashore sediment on the southern coast in Korea, and its taxonomic position was investigated by using a polyphasic approach. Strain M-M22(T) was observed to grow optimally at pH 7.0-7.5, at 30 °C and in the presence of 2 % (w/v) NaCl. Neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain M-M22(T) fell within the clade comprising the type strains of Oceanicola species, except Oceanicola granulosus. Strain M-M22(T) exhibited the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity values (each 95.4 %) to the type strains of Oceanicola batsensis and Oceanicola nitratireducens and 93.9-94.8 % sequence similarity to the type strains of the other Oceanicola species Strain M-M22(T) was found to contain Q-10 as the predominant ubiquinone and C18:1 ω7c as the predominant fatty acid. Major polar lipids were determined to be phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, one unidentified aminolipid and one unidentified lipid. The DNA G+C content was determined to be 67.6 mol%. Differential phenotypic properties, together with the phylogenetic distinctiveness, demonstrated that strain M-M22(T) is distinguished from other Oceanicola species. On the basis of the data presented, strain M-M22(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Oceanicola, for which the name Oceanicola litoreus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is M-M22(T) (= KCTC 32083(T) = CCUG 62794(T)).