Ruegeria pelagia is a later heterotypic synonym of Ruegeria mobilis

The 16S rRNA genes of Ruegeria pelagia NBRC 102038T and Ruegeria mobilis NBRC 101030T were resequenced and the results confirmed that they differ by only one base in their almost full-length sequences (1425 nt). The gyrB gene sequence similarity between the two strains was also high (97.7%). The outcome of API 20NE, API ZYM and antibiotic susceptibility tests showed that the two strains show only one difference, in beta-galactosidase activity, in API tests and five differences in susceptibility among 30 tested antibiotics. In addition, similar BOX-PCR fingerprints were obtained and the DNA-DNA relatedness between the two strains was 91+/-4%. On the basis of these results, it is concluded that Ruegeria pelagia Lee et al. 2007 is a later heterotypic synonym of Ruegeria mobilis Muramatsu et al. 2007.