Isolation and characterization of marine nonylphenol-degrading bacteria and description of Pseudomaricurvus alkylphenolicus gen. nov., sp. nov.

Two novel aerobic p-n-nonylphenol-degrading bacterial strains were isolated from seawater obtained from the coastal region of Ogasawara Islands, Japan. The 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated that the strains are affiliated with the order Alteromonadales within the class Gammaproteobacteria. One isolate, strain KU41G2, is most closely related to Maricurvus nonylphenolicus (99.2 % similarity), and is tentatively identified as M. nonylphenolicus. The other isolate, strain KU41G(T), is also most closely related to M. nonylphenolicus; however, the 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity was only 94.7 %. Cells of strain KU41G(T) are Gram-negative rods with a single polar flagellum. The predominant respiratory lipoquinone was ubiquinone-8, and the major cellular fatty acids were C17:1 ω8c (24.2 %); C15:0 iso 2-OH; and/or C16:1 ω7c (16.3 %), C15:0 (10.3 %), C11:0 3-OH (9.5 %), C9:0 3-OH (6.7 %), C10:0 3-OH (6.4 %), and C18:1 ω7c (5.5 %). The DNA G+C content was 53.3 mol%. On the basis of physiological, chemotaxonomic, and phylogenetic data, strain KU41G(T) is suggested to represent a novel species of a new genus, for which we propose the name Pseudomaricurvus alkylphenolicus gen. nov., sp. nov. The type strain of P. alkylphenolicus is KU41G(T) (=JCM 19135(T) = KCTC 32386(T)).