Rothia marina sp. nov., isolated from an intertidal sediment of the South China Sea

A novel non-sporulating, non-motile, catalase-positive, oxidase-negative, facultatively anaerobic, Gram-positive coccus, designated strain JSM 078151^T, was isolated from an intertidal sediment sample collected from Naozhou Island in the South China Sea, China. Growth was found to occur in the presence of 0–15 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 0.5–3 % (w/v) NaCl), at pH 6.5–10.5 (optimum pH 7.0–8.0) and at 5–35 °C (optimum 25–30 °C). The peptidoglycan type was determined to be A3a, containing lysine, glutamic acid and alanine. The major cellular fatty acid identified was anteiso-C_15:0 and the predominant menaquinones are MK-7 and MK-8. The polar lipids were found to consist of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, glycolipid and one unidentified phospholipid. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain JSM 078151^T was determined to be 55.2 mol%. A phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons revealed that strain JSM 078151^T should be assigned to the genus Rothia, and was most closely related to Rothia nasimurium CCUG 35957^T (98.3 % sequence similarity), followed by Rothia amarae J18^T (97.5 %) and Rothia terrae L-143^T (97.3 %). A combination of phylogenetic analysis, DNA–DNA relatedness values, phenotypic characteristics and chemotaxonomic data supports the suggestion that strain JSM 078151^T represents a novel species of the genus Rothia, for which the name Rothia marina sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is JSM 078151^T (= DSM 21080^T = KCTC 19432^T).