Zhongshania ponticola sp. nov., a novel lipolytic bacterium of the class Gammaproteobacteria isolated from seawater.

A bacterial strain, designated GM-8T , which was isolated from seawater around Pohang in Republic of Korea, was subjected to a polyphasic taxonomic study. It was lipolytic, Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-motile and coccoid, ovoid, or rod-shaped. Strain GM-8T grew optimally at 30 °C and in the presence of 2.0-3.0% (w/v) NaCl. The phylogenetic trees of 16S rRNA gene sequences based on three algorithms showed that strain GM-8T joined the clade comprising the type strains of Zhongshania species. The novel strain exhibited the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity value (98.6%) to Zhongshania borealis CL-AS9T and sequence similarities of 97.7-98.3% to the type strains of three other Zhongshania species. Strain GM-8T contained Q-8 as the predominant ubiquinone and C17:1 ω8c, summed feature 3 (C16:1 ω7c and/or C16:1 ω6c), and C18:1 ω7c as the major fatty acids. Phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylethanolamine were major polar lipids found in strain GM-8T and the type strain of Zhongshania antarctica. The DNA G + C content of strain GM-8T was 50.9 mol%. Mean DNA-DNA relatedness values between strain GM-8T and the type strains of four other Zhongshania species were 13.3-20.3%. Its differential phenotypic traits, together with the phylogenetic and genetic evidences, revealed that strain GM-8T is distinct from recognized species of the genus Zhongshania. On the basis of the data presented, strain GM-8T represents a novel species of the genus Zhongshania, for which the name Zhongshania ponticola sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is GM-8T (= KCTC 62425T  = KACC 19616T  = NBRC 113193T ).