Colwellia beringensis sp nov., a psychrophilic bacterium isolated from the Bering Sea

A Gram stain-negative, motile and rod-shaped bacterial strain, designated NB097-1(T), was isolated from a marine sediment sample collected from the Bering Sea, and subjected to a polyphasic taxonomic study. Strain NB097-1(T) grew at 0-25 degrees C, with an optimum growth temperature of 10-13 degrees C. Phylogenetic trees reconstructed based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain NB097-1(T) belonged to the genus Colwellia. Strain NB097-1(T) exhibited 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities of 98.6, 98.5, 98.0, 97.2 and 96.8% with the type strains of Colwellia mytili, C. sediminilitoris, C. aestuarii, C. polaris and C. chukchiensis, respectively. Strain NB097-1(T) had Q-8 as the major respiratory quinone and contained summed feature 3 (C-16 : 1 omega 7c and/or C-16 : 1 omega 6c) and C-16 : 0 as the major fatty acids. The major polar lipids detected in strain NB097-1(T) were phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylethanolamine. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain NB097-1(T) was 38.5 mol%, and its average nucleotide identity values with the type strains of C. mytili, C. sediminilitoris, C. aestuarii, C. polaris and C. chukchiensis were 77.30, 78.99, 78.82, 80.66 and 75.77 %, respectively. On the basis of phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic properties, together with average nucleotide identity value data, strain NB097-1(T) represents a novel species of the genus Colwellia, for which the name Colwellia beringensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is NB097-1(T) (=MCCC 1A11668(T)=KCTC 52554(T)).