Proposal to transfer Flavobacterium oceanosedimentum Carty and Litchfield 1978 to the genus Curtobacterium as Curtobacterium oceanosedimentum comb. nov.

Flavobacterium oceanosedimentum Carty & Litchfield 1978(AL) had been described as a novel species in the genus Flavobacterium on the basis of phenotypic characteristics, although the organism shows a high G+C content, a property never found in the other members of the genus. In this study, we re-evaluated the taxonomic position of F. oceanosedimentum using a polyphasic approach. The 16S rRNA gene sequence of F. oceanosedimentum ATCC 31717(T) indicated that it is closely related to the genus Curtobacterium in the class Actinobacteria, showing 96.5-99.9% similarity values to Curtobacterium spp. Phylogenetic analysis based on the gene encoding the gyrase subunit B (gyrB) and DNA-DNA hybridization suggest that F. oceanosedimentum represents a separate species in the genus Curtobacterium, which is also supported by comparative analysis of cellular fatty acid profiles and a large array of phenotypic traits. We therefore propose to transfer F. oceanosedimentum to the genus Curtobacterium as Curtobacterium oceanosedimentum comb. nov.