A Gram-stain negative, facultative anaerobic, non-motile, strongly orange-pigmented and rod-shaped bacterium, designated XAY3209T, was isolated from a marine sediment sample collected from the coast of Weihai, China. Strain XAY3209T was found to grow optimally at 30 °C, at pH 7.0 and in the presence of 2.0% (w/v) NaCl. Its genomic DNA G+C content was 41.9 mol%. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, the novel isolate belongs to the family Cyclobacteriaceae and is related to the genus Algoriphagus. It shares 98.1% 16S rRNA sequence identity with Algoriphagus marincola, its close phylogenetic relative, but did not show similarities more than 97% with other members of the genus Algoriphagus with validly published names. It contained menaquinone-7 (MK-7) as the sole respiratory quinone, iso-C15:0, iso-C17:1 ω9c and Summed feature 3 (C16:1 ω7c and/or iso-C15:0 2-OH) as the major fatty acids. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, one unidentified aminolipid, one unidentified phospholipid and five unidentified lipids. Results of physiological experiments, biochemical tests and genome average nucleotide identity value (with A. marincola MCCC 1F01203T) indicate that strain XAY3209T is genetically and phenotypically distinct from the species of the genus Algoriphagus with validly published names. Strain XAY3209T therefore represents a novel species, for which the name Algoriphagus formosus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is XAY3209T (= KCTC 52842T = MCCC 1H00189T).
Keywords: 16S rRNA gene; Algoriphagus; Polyphasic taxonomy.