A taxonomic study was carried out on an isolate, strain NO2(T), from marine sediment collected from the East Sea, Korea. Comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence studies showed that this strain belonged to the Gammaproteobacteria and was most closely related to Glaciecola mesophila KMM 241(T) and Glaciecola polaris LMG 21857(T) (98.6 and 98.0 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, respectively). The isolate was Gram-negative, aerobic and slightly halophilic and grew in 2-8 % NaCl and at 7-30 degrees C. Strain NO2(T) shared some physiological and biochemical properties with G. mesophila KMM 241(T) and G. polaris LMG 21857(T). The G+C content of the genomic DNA of strain NO2(T) was 45 mol%. Strain NO2(T) possessed C(16 : 0), summed feature 4 (C(16 : 1)omega7c and/or iso-C(15 : 0) 2-OH) and summed feature 7 (C(18 : 1)omega9c/omega12t/omega7c) as the major cellular fatty acids. DNA-DNA relatedness data indicated that strain NO2(T) represents a distinct species that is separate from G. mesophila and G. polaris. On the basis of polyphasic evidence, it is proposed that strain NO2(T) (=KCTC 12755(T)=LMG 23762(T)) represents the type strain of a novel species, Glaciecola agarilytica sp. nov.