ORIGINAL PAPER Marinobacter zhanjiangensis sp. nov., a marine bacterium isolated from sea water of a tidal flat of the South China Sea Da-Chun Zhuang Æ Yi-Guang Chen Æ Yu-Qin Zhang Æ Shu-Kun Tang Æ Xiao-Lei Wu Æ Zhou-Cai Tan Æ Wen-Jun Li Æ Xiao-Long Cui Received: 2 January 2009 / Accepted: 7 April 2009 / Published online: 24 April 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract A novel Gram-negative, catalase- and oxidase-positive, non-sporulating, rod-shaped, aero- bic bacterium, designated strain JSM 078120 T , was isolated from sea water collected from a tidal flat of Naozhou Island, South China Sea. Growth occurred with 1–15% (w/v) total salts (optimum, 2–4%), at pH 6.0–10.0 (optimum, pH 7.5) and at 4–35°C (opti- mum, 25–30°C). The major cellular fatty acids were C 18:1 x9c, C 16:0 , C 12:0 3-OH and C 16:1 x7c. The predominant respiratory quinone was ubiquinone Q-9, and the genomic DNA G ? C content was 60.6 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain JSM 078120 T should be assigned to the genus Marinob- acter, being related most closely to the type strains of Marinobacter segnicrescens (sequence similarity 98.2%), Marinobacter bryozoorum (97.9%) and Marinobacter gudaonensis (97.6%). The sequence similarities between the novel isolate and the type strains of other recognized Marinobacter species ranged from 96.7 (with Marinobacter salsuginis) to 93.3% (with Marinobacter litoralis). The levels of DNA–DNA relatedness between strain JSM 078120 T and the type strains of M. segnicrescens, M. bryo- zoorum and M. gudaonensis were 25.3, 20.6 and 18.8%, respectively. The combination of phyloge- netic analysis, DNA–DNA relatedness, phenotypic characteristics and chemotaxonomic data supported the view that strain JSM 078120 T represents a novel species of the genus Marinobacter, for which the name Marinobacter zhanjiangensis sp. nov. is pro- posed. The type strain is JSM 078120 T (= CCTCC AB 208029 T = DSM 21077 T = KCTC 22280 T ). Keywords Marinobacter zhanjiangensis sp. nov. Á South China Sea Introduction The genus Marinobacter was proposed by Gauthier et al. (1992) with a single species Marinobacter The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain JSM 078120 T is FJ425903. D.-C. Zhuang Á Y.-G. Chen (&) Á Z.-C. Tan College of Biology and Environmental Sciences, Jishou University, 416000 Jishou, People’s Republic of China e-mail: mchenjsu@yahoo.com.cn Y.-G. Chen Á S.-K. Tang Á W.-J. Li Á X.-L. Cui (&) The Key Laboratory for Microbial Resources of the Ministry of Education, Yunnan Institute of Microbiology, Yunnan University, 650091 Kunming, People’s Republic of China e-mail: xlcuiynu@yahoo.com.cn Y.-Q. Zhang Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, 100050 Beijing, People’s Republic of China X.-L. Wu Department of Energy and Resource Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, 100871 Beijing, China 123 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (2009) 96:295–301 DOI 10.1007/s10482-009-9344-5