Rheinheimera nanhaiensis sp. nov., isolated from marine sediments, and emended description of the genus Rheinheimera Brettar et al. 2002 emend. Merchant et al. 2007.

A Gram-negative, facultatively aerobic, oxidase- and catalase-positive, rod-shaped bacterium, designated strain E407-8(T), was isolated from a sediment sample from the South China Sea. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that strain E407-8(T) was affiliated with the genus Rheinheimera, sharing the highest sequence similarity with Rheinheimera pacifica KMM 1406(T) (97.5 %) and Rheinheimera aquimaris SW-353(T) (97.4 %) and showing less than 97 % sequence similarity to the type strains of other recognized Rheinheimera species. Levels of DNA-DNA relatedness of strain E407-8(T) to R. pacifica DSM 17616(T) and R. aquimaris JCM 14331(T) were 25.2 % (25.3 % in the duplicate measurement) and 9.4 % (6.5 %), respectively. The bacterium could grow at 10-48 °C (optimum 37 °C) and in the presence of 0-8 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 0.5-2.5 %). The major cellular fatty acids of strain E407-8(T) were summed feature 3 (C(16 : 1)ω7c and/or iso-C(15 : 0) 2-OH), C(17 : 1)ω8c, C(16 : 0) and C(18 : 1)ω7c. The predominant respiratory quinone was ubiquinone Q-8. The DNA G+C content was 51.0 mol%. Based on the results of our polyphasic taxonomic study, strain E407-8(T) represents a novel species in the genus Rheinheimera, for which the name Rheinheimera nanhaiensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is E407-8(T) ( = CCTCC AB 209089(T)  = KACC 14030(T)). An emended description of the genus Rheinheimera Brettar et al. 2002 emend. Merchant et al. 2007 is also proposed.