Sulfitobacter sabulilitoris sp. nov., isolated from marine sand

A Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-motile and ovoid or rod-shaped bacterial strain, HSMS-29(T), was isolated from a marine sand sample collected from the Yellow Sea, Republic of Korea. The neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree of 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain HSMS-29(T) fell within the clade comprising the type strains of Sulfitobacter species. Strain HSMS-29(T) exhibited 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities of 97.2-98.4% to the type strains of Sulfitobacter mediterraneus, Sulfitobacter porphyrae, Sulfitobacter marinus, Sulfitobacter pontiacus, Sulfitobacter litoralis, Sulfitobacter brevis, Sulfitobacter noctilucicola and Sulfitobacter dubius and 96.3-96.9% to the type strains of the other Sulfitobacter species. The genomic ANI values of strain HSMS-29(T) with the type strains of S. mediterraneus, S. marinus, S. pontiacus, S. litoralis, S. brevis, S. noctilucicola and S. dubius were 72.66-74.99 %. The DNA-DNA relatedness value between strain HSMS-29(T) and the type strain of S. porphyrae was 17 %. Strain HSMS-29(T) contained Q-10 as the predominant ubiquinone and C-18 : 1 omega 7c as the major fatty acid. The major polar lipids of strain HSMS-29(T) were phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, one unidentified aminolipid and one unidentified lipid. The DNA G+C content of strain HSMS-29(T) was 65.0 mol% (HPLC) or 64.4% (genome analysis). Distinguished phenotypic properties, along with the phylogenetic and genetic distinctiveness, revealed that strain HSMS-29(T) is separated from recognized Sulfitobacter species. On the basis of the data presented here, strain HSMS-29(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Sulfitobacter, for which the name Sulfitobacter sabulilitoris sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HSMS-29(T) (=KACC 19870(T)=NBRC 113549(T)).