sp. nov., a halophilic bacterium isolated from sediment collected at a cold seep field in the South China Sea.

A moderately halophilic bacterium, designated strain KX20305, was isolated from sediment collected from a cold seep field in the South China Sea. Cells of strain KX20305 were Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped, non-motile, facultatively anaerobic, oxidase- and catalase-positive, and grew optimally at 25-30 °C, pH 6.0-8.0 and with 3-6 % (w/v) NaCl. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain KX20305 grouped with members of the genus , including D-24 (98.3 % sequence similarity), KMM 3516 (98.1 %) and CC-CZW007 (97.5 %). Genome sequencing of strain KX20305 revealed a genome size of 3.35 Mb and a DNA G+C content of 38.71 mol%. Genomic average nucleotide identity (orthoANI) values of strain KX20305 with D-24, KMM 3516 and JCM 30378 were 83.8, 81.7 and 75.4 %, respectively, while DNA-DNA hybridization (GGDC) values for strain KX20305 with these strains were 27.2, 25.0 and 19.6 %, respectively. The major fatty acids of strain KX20305 were iso-C, iso-C 3-OH and 10-methyl C/iso-C 9. The predominant respiratory quinone was menaquinone-6 (MK-6). The polar lipids mainly comprised phosphatidylethanolamine, two unidentified aminolipids and two unidentified lipids. Based on comparative analysis of phylogenetic, phylogenomic, phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics, strain KX20305 represents a novel species of the genus , for which the name sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is KX20305 (=KCTC 82699=MCCC 1K06238=JCM 34635).