Arcobacter canalis sp. nov., isolated from a water canal contaminated with urban sewage.

Four bacterial strains recovered from shellfish (n=3) and from the water (n=1) of a canal contaminated with urban sewage were recognized as belonging to a novel species of the genus Arcobacter (represented by strain F138-33T) by using a polyphasic characterization. All the new isolates required 2 % NaCl to grow. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that all strains clustered together, with the most closely related species being Arcobacter marinus and Arcobactermolluscorum. However, phylogenetic analyses using the concatenated sequences of housekeeping genes (atpA, gyrB, hsp60, gyrA and rpoB) showed that all the novel strains formed a distinct lineage within the genus Arcobacter. Results of in silico DNA-DNA hybridization and the average nucleotide identity between the genome of strain F138-33T and those of the closely related species A. marinus and other relatively closely related species such as A. molluscorum and Arcobacterhalophilus were all below 70 and 96 %, respectively. All the above results, together with the 15 physiological and biochemical tests that could distinguish the newly isolated strains from the closely related species, confirmed that these strains represent a novel species for which the name Arcobacter canalis sp. nov. is proposed, with the type strain F138-33T (=CECT 8984T=LMG 29148T).