Methanococcoides orientis sp. nov., a methylotrophic methanogen isolated from sediment of the East China Sea

A novel methylotrophic methanogen sp. nov. was isolated from East China Sea sediment. Type strain LMO-1 of sp. nov. was irregular 1-2 µm cocci without flagella. Strain LMO-1 could utilize a variety of methylated compounds including methanol, methylamine, dimethylamine and trimethylamine for growth and methanogenesis, while H /CO or acetate could not be used for growth or methanogenesis. Optimum growth temperature was 30-35 °C, optimum pH range for growth was 7.0-7.5, while the optimum salinity spectrum for growth was 1.0%-5.0% NaCl. Based on 16S rRNA gene similarity, strain LMO-1 belongs to , with the highest sequence similarity to DSM 2657 (99.8 %), SLH33 (99.4 %), followed by AK-5 (98.1 %), DSM 6242 (98.0 %). Digital DNA-DNA hybridization also showed highest similarity with DSM 2657 , with the value of 58.4 %. The average nucleotide identity between strain LMO-1 and DSM 2657 was 94.06 %. In summary, LMO-1 represents a novel species of the genus , for which the name sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is LMO-1 (=MCCC 4K00106 =JCM 39195 ).