Aureisphaera salina sp nov., a member of the family Flavobacteriaceae isolated from an ascidian

A Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped, non-motile, strictly aerobic, chemoheterotrophic, pale-yellow-pigmented bacterium, designated strain A6D-50(T), was isolated from an ascidian collected at Kohama Island offshore Okinawa, Japan. Preliminary analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that the novel isolate was affiliated with the family Flavobacteriaceae of the phylum Bacteroidetes and that it showed highest sequence similarity (97.6 %) to Aureisphaera galaxeae 04OKA003-7(T). The DNA-DNA relatedness value between strain A6D-50(T) and A. galaxeae 04OKA003-7(T) was 23.6 %. The DNA G+C content of strain A6D-50(T) was 40.8 mol%, MK-6 was the only menaquinone, and iso-C-17:0 3-OH, iso-C-15:0, iso-C-15:1 G and summed feature 3 (C-16:1 omega 7c and/or C-16:1 omega 6c) were the major (> 10 %) cellular fatty acids. The polar lipid profile consisted of phosphatidylethanolamine, two unidentified aminolipids and an unidentified lipid. From the distinct phylogenetic position and combination of genotypic and phenotypic characteristics, the strain is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Aureisphaera for which the name Aureisphaera salina sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is A6D-50(T) (= KCTC 42975(T) = NBRC 111827(T)).