Aquimarina spongiicola sp. nov., isolated from spongin.

A Gram-reaction-negative, aerobic, motile by gliding, non-spore-forming, rod-shaped bacterial strain, designated 122CH820-2, was isolated from spongin. This bacterium was characterized to determine its taxonomic position by using a polyphasic approach. Strain 122CH820-2 grew well at 25-30 °C on marine agar. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, strain 122CH820-2 belonged to the family Flavobacteriaceae and was closely related to Aquimarina mytili PSC33 (96.8 % sequence similarity) and A. penaei P3-1 (96.7 %). Lower sequence similarities (<96.5 %) were found with all of the other recognized members of the genus Aquimarina. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 35.2 mol%. The major respiratory quinone was menaquinone MK-6 and the major fatty acids were C15 : 0, iso-C17 : 0 3-OH, iso-C15 : 1 G and iso-C15 : 0 3-OH. The polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, one aminophospholipid and five unidentified polar lipids. Strain 122CH820-2 could be differentiated genotypically and phenotypically from recognized species of the genus Aquimarina. The isolate therefore represents a novel species, for which the name Aquimarina spongiicola sp. nov. is proposed, with the type strain 122CH820-2 (=KACC 19274=LMG 30078).