Lishizhenia caseinilytica gen. nov., sp. nov., a marine bacterium of the phylum Bacteroidetes

1 Department of Biology, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR, People's Republic of China 2 Department of Biology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong, SAR, People's Republic of China Correspondence Ken W. K. Lau sslwk{at}ust.hk A light-orange, aerobic bacterium, strain UST040201-001 T , that degrades casein, gelatin and Tween 20, was isolated in February 2004 from a sand-filtered seawater sample from Port Shelter, Hong Kong SAR, China. The strain possessed menaquinone-6 and its 16S rRNA gene sequence shared only 90.1 % similarity with that of Brumimicrobium glaciale IC156 T . Phylogenetic analysis showed that UST040201-001 T formed a distinct lineage within the family Cryomorphaceae . Its ecophysiological and biochemical characteristics suggest that this strain represents a novel genus and species within the phylum Bacteroidetes . The name Lishizhenia caseinilytica gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Lishizhenia caseinilytica is UST040201-001 T (=NRRL B-41434 T =JCM 13821 T ). The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain UST040201-001 T is AB176674 . A photograph showing colony morphology and phase-contrast and scanning electron micrographs of strain UST040201-001 T are available as supplementary material in IJSEM Online.