Harenicola maris gen. nov., sp. nov. isolated from the Sea of Japan shallow sediments.

A Gram-negative, non-motile bacterium КMM 3653 was isolated from a sediment sample from the Sea of Japan seashore, Russia. On the basis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis the strain КMM 3653 was positioned within the family Rhodobacteraceae (class Alphaproteobacteria) forming a distinct lineage with the highest gene sequence similarities to the members of the genera Pacificibacter (95.2-94.7%) and Nioella (95.1-94.5%), respectively. According to the phylogenomic tree based on 400 conserved protein sequences, strain КMM 3653 was placed in the cluster comprising Vannielia litorea, Nioella nitratireducens, Litoreibacter albidus and Pseudoruegeria aquimaris as a separate lineage adjacent to V. litorea KCTC 32083. The average nucleotide identity values between strain КMM 3653 and V. litorea KCTC 32083, N. nitratireducens KCTC 32417, L. albidus KMM 3851, and P. aquimaris CECT 7680 were 71.1, 70.3, 69.6, and 71.0%, respectively. Strain КMM 3653 contained Q-10 as the predominant ubiquinone and Cω7c as the major fatty acid followed by C. The polar lipids were phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, an unidentified phospholipid, two unidentified aminolipids, and five unidentified lipids. The DNA G+C content of 61.8% was calculated from the genome sequence. Based on the phylogenetic evidence and distinctive phenotypic characteristics, we proposed strain KMM 3653 (= KCTC 82575) to be classified as a novel genus and species Harenicola maris gen. nov., sp. nov.