Gramella portivictoriae sp. nov., a novel member of the family Flavobacteriaceae isolated from marine sediment

1 Coastal Marine Laboratory/Department of Biology, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR 2 Department of Biology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR Correspondence Pei-Yuan Qian boqianpy{at}ust.hk A yellow-pigmented, Gram-negative, slowly gliding, rod-shaped, strictly aerobic bacterium (UST040801-001 T ) was isolated from marine sediment. The DNA G+C content was 39·9 mol%. The predominant fatty acids were a15 : 0, i15 : 0, i15 : 0 3-OH, i17 : 1 9 c , i17 : 0 3-OH and summed feature 3, comprising i15 : 0 2-OH and/or 16 : 1 7 c (altogether representing 76·2 % of the total). MK-6 was the only respiratory quinone. Flexirubin-type pigments were not produced. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that Gramella echinicola KMM 6050 T (the only species in the genus) was the closest relative of UST040801-001 T , sharing 98·0 % sequence similarity. The DNA–DNA relatedness between UST040801-001 T and Gramella echinicola KMM 6050 T was 13 %. Strain UST040801-001 T can be distinguished from G. echinicola by means of 11 phenotypic traits. The results of molecular and phenotypic analyses suggested that UST040801-001 T represents a novel species of Gramella . The name Gramella portivictoriae sp. nov. is proposed for this bacterium, with UST040801-001 T (=NRRL 41137 T =JCM 13192 T ) as the type strain. Published online ahead of print on 29 July 2005 as DOI 10.1099/ijs.0.63824-0. The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain UST040801-001 T is DQ002871 . An electron micrograph of cells of strain UST040801-001 T , the results of API 20E, API 20NE and API ZYM tests and details of the carbon sources tested are available as supplementary material in IJSEM Online.