Cesiribacter andamanensis gen. nov., sp. nov., isolated from a soil sample from a mud volcano T. N. R. Srinivas, 1 P. Anil Kumar, 1 S. Madhu, 1 B. Sunil, 1 T. V. R. S. Sharma 2 and S. Shivaji 1 Correspondence S. Shivaji shivas@ccmb.res.in 1 Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Uppal Road, Hyderabad 500 007, India 2 Central Agricultural Research Institute, Post Box 181, Port Blair 744 101, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India A novel Gram-staining-negative, rod-shaped, non-motile bacterium, strain AMV16 T , was isolated from a soil sample collected from a mud volcano located in the Andaman Islands, India. The cell suspension was pale orange. Cells of strain AMV16 T were positive for catalase, oxidase, lipase, ornithine decarboxylase and lysine decarboxylase and negative for gelatinase and urease. The fatty acids present were anteiso-C 11 : 0 (5.4 %), anteiso-C 12 : 0 (4.1 %), C 12 : 0 (7.0 %), iso-C 15 : 0 (14.4 %), anteiso-C 15 : 0 (3.4 %), anteiso-C 16 : 0 (3.0 %), C 16 : 0 (2.6 %), anteiso-C 17 : 0 (3.7 %), iso-C 19 : 0 (9.7 %), C 13 : 1 (13.8 %), iso-C 15 : 1 G (15.9 %), iso-C 16 : 1 G (11.1 %) and summed feature 5 (anteiso-C 18 : 0 and/or C 18 : 2 v6,9c; 5.9 %). Strain AMV16 T contained MK-4 and MK-7 as the major respiratory quinones and diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylethanolamine made up the phospholipids. The G+C content of DNA of strain AMV16 T was 50.9 mol%. BLAST sequence similarity searches based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence indicated that species of the genus Marivirga were the nearest phylogenetic neighbours, with pairwise sequence similarity ranging from 89.9 to 90.0 %. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that strain AMV16 T clustered with the type strains of Marivirga tractuosa and Marivirga sericea at a phylogenetic distance of 14.6 % (85.4 % similarity), distinct from clades representing other genera of the family ‘Flammeovirgaceae’. Based on the above-mentioned phenotypic and phylogenetic characteristics, strain AMV16 T is proposed as a representative of a new genus and novel species, Cesiribacter andamanensis gen. nov., sp. nov. The type strain of Cesiribacter andamanensis is AMV16 T (5DSM 22818 T 5CCUG 58431 T ). The systematics of the family ‘Flammeovirgaceae’ are currently in a state of expansion, with many new genera being described within the last 6 years, including Fabibacter, Limibacter, Marinoscillum, Perexilibacter, Rapidithrix, Reichenbachiella, Marivirga and Roseivirga, from a wide variety of habitats such as decayed wood, sea shells (Srisukchayakul et al., 2007), fresh water (Nedashkovskaya et al., 2010), marine algae (Nedashkovskaya et al., 2005a; Srisukchayakul et al., 2007), sediment (Yoon et al., 2007, 2008) and sponges (Lau et al., 2006; Seo et al., 2009) and seawater (Nedashkovskaya et al., 2005b). In the present study, we describe a novel bacterium isolated from a soil sample collected from a mud volcano that is assigned to a new genus that belongs to the family ‘Flammeovirgaceae’. Strain AMV16 T was isolated from a soil sample collected from a mud volcano on Baratang Island, Middle Andamans, India, on 20 February 2009. The sample that yielded strain AMV4 T had a pH of 7.5. For isolation of bacteria, 100 mg soil sample was plated on ZoBell marine agar medium (ZoBell, 1941) and incubated at room temperature for 15 days. Based on colony morphology, a pale-orange colony was selected and characterized in the present study. Flexibacter tractuosa DSM 4126 T (now reclassified as Marivirga tractuosa, the type species of the genus Marivirga; Nedashkovskaya et al., 2010) was procured from the DSMZ; strain AMV16 T was characterized simultaneously with Marivirga (Flexibacter) tractuosa DSM 4126 T . Cell morphology and motility were studied using a light microscope. Motility was assessed on TSA containing (l 21 ) pancreatic digest of casein (17 g), papaic digest of soybean meal (3 g), NaCl (5 g), dipotassium hydrogen phosphate (2.5 g), glucose (2.5 g) and agar (0.4 g) and on motility indole lysine agar slants (cat. no. SL033; HiMedia). Growth at 4, 10, 18, 30, 37 and 40 u C and salt tolerance [0 (without NaCl), 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10 % (w/v) NaCl], biochemical characteristics, carbon assimilation, H 2 S production and sensitivity of the culture to antibiotics were determined by previously described %paper no. ije025429 charlesworth ref: ije025429& New Taxa - Bacteroidetes The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain AMV16 T is FN396961. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (2011), 61, 000–000 DOI 10.1099/ijs.0.025429-0 025429 G 2011 IUMS Printed in Great Britain 1