Tenacibaculum crassostreae sp. nov., isolated from the Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas

1 Department of Biology, Sunchon National University, Suncheon 540-742, Republic of Korea 2 Department of Dental Hygiene, Gwangju Health College University, Gwangju 506-701, Republic of Korea 3 Department of Environmental Education, Sunchon National University, Suncheon 540-742, Republic of Korea 4 Department of Life Science, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 156-756, Republic of Korea Correspondence Jae Sung Jung jjung{at}sunchon.ac.kr A rod-shaped, yellow-pigmented, aerobic, Gram-negative bacterium, designated strain JO-1 T , was isolated from an apparently healthy Pacific oyster, Crassostrea gigas , collected at Wan Island, Korea. It grew at 15–37 °C (optimum 30 °C) only in the presence of sea salts. Strain JO-1 T hydrolysed casein, Tween 80 and starch. The major fatty acids were iso-C 15 : 0 (23.8 %), summed feature 3 (comprising C 16 : 1 7 c and/or iso-C 15 : 0 2-OH; 14.5 %) and iso-C 15 : 1 G (14.1 %). Analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence indicated that strain JO-1 T was a member of the genus Tenacibaculum in the family Flavobacteriaceae , with sequence similarity of 94.6–97.8 % to the type strains of recognized members of the genus. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 31.4 mol%. DNA–DNA relatedness levels between strain JO-1 T and the five closest relatives, Tenacibaculum litoreum KCCM 42115 T , T. lutimaris KCTC 12302 T , T. aestuarii KCTC 12569 T , T. mesophilum DSM 13764 T and T. adriaticum JCM 14633 T , were less than 28 %. Phylogenetic analyses and differences in physiological and biochemical characteristics suggested that strain JO-1 T (=KCTC 22329 T =JCM 15428 T ) should be classified as the type strain of a novel species within the genus Tenacibaculum , for which the name Tenacibaculum crassostreae sp. nov. is proposed. The GenBank accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain JO-1 T is EU428783 . A scanning electron micrograph of cells of strain JO-1 T is available as a supplementary figure with the online version of this paper.