Description of Litoreibacter meonggei sp. nov., isolated from the sea squirt Halocynthia roretzi, reclassification of Thalassobacter arenae as Litoreibacter arenae comb. nov. and emended description of the genus Litoreibacter Romanenko et al. 2011

A Gram-negative, non-motile and coccoid, ovoid or rod-shaped bacterial strain, designated MA1-1T, was isolated from a sea squirt (Halocynthia roretzi) collected from the South Sea, Korea. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain MA1-1T is phylogenetically closely related to Litoreibacter species and to Thalassobacter arenae. It exhibited 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities of 97.3, 97.1 and 97.3 % to the type strains of Litoreibacter albidus, Litoreibacter janthinus and T. arenae, respectively. Strain MA1-1T contained Q-10 as the predominant ubiquinone and C18 : 1ω7c as the predominant fatty acid. The polar lipid profile of strain MA1-1T was similar to those of the type strains of L. albidus and L. janthinus. T. arenae was found to be phylogenetically and chemotaxonomically more closely related to Litoreibacter species and strain MA1-1T than to Thalassobacter stenotrophicus, the type species of the genus Thalassobacter. The DNA G+C content of strain MA1-1T was 57.9 mol%, and DNA–DNA relatedness to the type strains of the two Litoreibacter species and T. arenae was 9–14 %. Differential phenotypic properties, together with the observed phylogenetic and genetic distinctiveness, distinguished strain MA1-1T from the two Litoreibacter species and T. arenae. On the basis of the data presented, strain MA1-1T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Litoreibacter, for which the name Litoreibacter meonggei sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MA1-1T ( = KCTC 23699T = CCUG 61486T). In this study, it is also proposed that Thalassobacter arenae is reclassified as a member of the genus Litoreibacter, Litoreibacter arenae comb. nov. (type strain GA2-M15T = DSM 19593T = KACC 12675T). An emended description of the genus Litoreibacter is also presented.