Kordia aquimaris sp. nov., a zeaxanthin-producing member of the family Flavobacteriaceae isolated from surface seawater, and emended description of the genus Kordia

A Gram-staining-negative, strictly aerobic, rod-shaped, non-flagellated, non-spore-forming and gliding marine bacterium designated strain CC-AMZ-301T was isolated from coastal surface seawater near Taichung harbour, Taiwan. Strain CC-AMZ-301^T predominantly synthesized zeaxanthin and thus formed yellow colonies on marine agar. The novel strain showed high pairwise 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to Kordia periserrulae IMCC1412^T (95.0 %), K. algicida KCTC 8814PT (94.4 %) and K. antarctica IMCC3317T (94.2 %), and formed a phylogenetic lineage tightly associated with species of the genus Kordia. The polar lipid profile of strain CC-AMZ-301^T consisted of three unidentified lipids, three unidentified aminolipids and one unidentified phospholipid. The major fatty acids (>5 % of total) were iso-C_{17: 0} 3-OH, iso-C_{15: 0}, summed feature 3 (C_{16: 1}ω7c and/or C_{16: 1}ω6c) and summed feature 9 (iso-C_{17: 1}ω9c and/or 10-methyl C_{16: 0}). The DNA G+C content was 36.4 mol%. Menaquinone 6 (MK-6) was the predominant respiratory quinone. The major polyamine was the triamine sym-homospermidine. Based on evidence from the present polyphasic study, strain CC-AMZ-301^T is proposed to represent a novel species of the genus Kordia, for which the name Kordia aquimaris sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is CC-AMZ-301^T (= JCM 18556^T = BCRC 80464^T). An emended description of the genus Kordia is also proposed.