A Gram-stain-negative, motile by gliding, rod-shaped bacterial strain, designated SOJ2014-1(T) was isolated from surface water of a polynya in the Antarctic Ocean. A comparative 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain SOJ2014-1(T) belongs to the genus Leeuwenhoekiella and is most closely related to Leeuwenhoekiella marinoflava DSM 3653(T) (97.5% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity). The G+C content of the genomic DNA of strain SOJ2014-1(T) was 38.8 mol%. Its predominant cellular fatty acids were summed feature 3 (composed of C16 : 1ω6c and/or C16 : 1ω7c), iso-C17 : 0 3-OH, iso-C15 : 0, iso-C15 : 1 G and summed feature 9 (composed of iso-C17 : 1ω9c and/or 10-methyl C16 : 0). DNA-DNA relatedness between strain SOJ2014-1(T) and close relatives, L. marinoflava DSM 3653(T) and Leeuwenhoekiella aequorea LMG 22550(T), was below 49%. The respiratory quinone was MK-6. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, an unidentified aminolipid and two unidentified lipids. The strain grew at 0-35 °C (optimum, 25 °C) with 0-14.0% (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 1.0-5.0%). It was strictly aerobic and had different carbohydrate utilization traits compared with L. marinoflava DSM 3653(T). Based on the phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic analyses, strain SOJ2014-1(T) is proposed as a representative of a novel species, Leeuwenhoekiella polynyae. The type strain is SOJ2014-1(T) ( =KCTC 42185(T) =JCM 30387(T)).
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