Altererythrobacter spongiae sp. nov., a novel member of the genus Altererythrobacter isolated from marine sponge

A taxonomic study was carried out on strain HN-Y73T, which was isolated from sponge collected from Yangpu Bay, Hainan, PR China. Strain HN-Y73T was Gram-stain-negative, non-motile, ovoid- to rod-shaped, yellow-pigmented and could grow at 10–42 °C (optimum, 28 °C), at pH 5.0–9.0 (pH 8.0) and in 0.5–16 % (w/v) NaCl (3–4 %). This isolate was positive for oxidase, catalase and the hydrolysis of aesculin and xylan, but negative for the hydrolysis of casein and gelatin. Strain HN-Y73T shared the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity with Altererythrobacter endophyticus BR75T (96.9 %), followed by Altererythrobacter estronivorus MH-B5T (96.0 %), Altererythrobacter indicus MSSRF26T (95.9 %) and Altererythrobacter mangrovi C9-11T (95.7 %). The phylogenetic tree showed that strain HN-Y73T forms a clade with A. endophyticus BR75T, A. indicus MSSRF26T and A. estronivorus MH-B5T within the genus Altererythrobacter . The dominant fatty acids were summed feature 8 (C18 : 1ω7c/ω6c) and C19 : 0cyclo ω8c. The major polar lipids comprised phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, sphingoglycolipid phosphatidyldimethylethanolamine, phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine, one unidentified glycolipid, two unidentified phospholipids and four unidentified lipids. The respiratory lipoquinone was identified as Q-10. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 57.6 mol%. Based on the phenotypic and phylogenetic data, strain HN-Y73T represents a novel species of the genus Altererythrobacter , for which the name Altererythrobacter spongiae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HN-Y73T (=MCCC 1K03324T=LMG 30461T).