Description of Prasinibacter corallicola gen. nov., sp. nov., a zeaxanthin-producing bacterium isolated from stony coral Porites lutea

Thermal stress is considered one of the main causes of mass scleractinian coral degradation; however, it is still unknown how corals can adapt to future global warming. In this study, 11 strains of coral-associated Flavobacteria were shown to produce zeaxanthin, a carotenoid antioxidant, which may help coral holobionts to alleviate thermal stress. In addition, a novel zeaxanthin-producing Flavobacterium, designated R38^T, was identified using polyphasic taxonomy. Although strain R38^T shared a maximum 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity of 93% with Mesoflavibacter aestuarii KYW614^T, phylogenetic analyses based on whole genome and 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain R38^T forms a distinct branch in a robust cluster composed of strain R38^T and Leptobacterium flavescens KCTC 22160^T under the family Flavobacteriaceae. Strain R38^T exhibited average nucleotide identities of 70.2% and 72.5% for M. aestuarii KYW614^T and L. flavescens KCTC 22160^T, respectively. The only detected respiratory quinone was menaquinone 6 (MK-6). The genomic DNA G?+?C content was 33.2 mol%. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylmethylethanolamine, phosphatidylethanolamine, one unidentified ninhydrin phospholipid, three unidentified ninhydrin-positive lipids, and three unidentified lipids. The major cellular fatty acids were iso???C_15:?0, iso???C_15:?0 ω6c, C_16:2 DMA, and C_13:1 ω3c. The distinct biochemical, chemotaxonomic, phylogenetic, and phylogenomic differences from validly published taxa suggest that strain R38^T represents a new species of a new genus, for which Prasinibacter corallicola gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain R38^T (=?MCCC 1K03889^T?=?KCTC 72444^T).