Hoeflea halophila sp. nov., a novel bacterium isolated from marine sediment of the East Sea, Korea

A Gram-negative, aerobic, motile, straight or curved rod-shaped marine bacterium was isolated from marine sediment of the East Sea, Korea. The isolated strain, JG120-1^T, grows with 0–5 % (w/v) NaCl and at 15–30 °C and pH 6–9. α-galactosidase activity test was positive. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence studies showed that this strain belonged to the Alphaproteobacteria and was the most closely related to Hoeflea alexandrii AM1 V30^T, Hoeflea phototrophica DFL-43^T and Hoeflea marina LMG 128^T (98.9, 97.9 and 97.0 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities, respectively). Strain JG120-1^T was found to possess summed feature 8 (C18:1ω7c/C18:1ω6c, 71.11 %) as the major cellular fatty acid. The major ubiquinone was determined to be Q-10. Polar lipids include phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, sulfoquinovosyl diacylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylmonomethylethanolamine. The G+C content of the genomic DNA of strain JG120-1^T was determined to be 57.8 mol %. DNA–DNA relatedness data indicated that strain JG120-1^T represents a distinct species that is separate from H. phototrophica DFL-43^T, H. marina LMG128^T and H. alexandrii AM1 V30^T. On the basis of polyphasic evidences, it is proposed that strain JG120-1^T (= KCTC 23107^T = JCM 16715^T) represents the type strain of a novel species, Hoeflea halophila sp. nov.