A Gram-stain-negative, facultative aerobic, motile by a polar flagellum, rod-shaped strain, designated BEI247T, was isolated from seawater at the bottom of the East China Sea. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene and whole genome data affiliated it with the genus Photobacterium. It was most closely related to Photobacterium alginatilyticum P03D4T (97.36 % 16S rRNA gene similarity). Multi-locus sequence analysis (MLSA) revealed a distinct lineage with P. alginatilyticum P03D4T as its closest relative. Strain BEI247T was found to have lower than 86.0 % similarities to the type strains of its most closely related species in MLSA, less than 82.3 % using genome average nucleotide identities, and less than 25.3 % in DNA-DNA relatedness studies. Growth occurred at 10-37 °C (optimum, 24 °C), pH 5.0-8.0 (pH 7.0) and in the presence of 1-5 % (w/v) NaCl (3 %). The dominant fatty acids were summed feature 3 (C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1ω6c) and C16 : 0. The polar lipids of strain BEI247T comprised phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, two phospholipids and one unknown lipid. The major respiratory quinone was ubiquinone-8 (Q-8). The DNA G+C content of strain BEI247T was 46.45 mol%. On the basis of the polyphasic evidence, strain BEI247T is proposed as representing a novel species of the genus Photobacterium, for which the name Photobacterium chitinilyticum sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is BEI247T (=JCM 32689T=MCCC 1K03517T=KCTC 62619T).
Keywords: East China Sea; Photobacterium chitinilyticum; bottom seawater.