Thalassolituus oleivorans gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel marine bacterium that obligately utilizes hydrocarbons

Abstract

An aerobic, heterotrophic, Gram-negative, curved bacterial strain, designated MIL-1 T , was isolated by extinction dilution from an n-tetradecane enrichment culture that was established from sea water/sediment samples collected in the harbour of Milazzo, Italy. In the primary enrichment, the isolate formed creamy-white, medium-sized colonies on the surface of the agar. The isolate did not grow in the absence of NaCl; growth was optimal at 2?7 % NaCl. Only a narrow spectrum of organic compounds, including aliphatic hydrocarbons (C 7 -C 20 ), their oxidized derivatives and acetate, were used as growth substrates. The isolate was not able to grow under denitrifying conditions. The DNA G+C content and genome size of strain MIL-1 T were estimated to be 53?2 mol% and 2?2 Mbp, respectively. The major cellular and phospholipid fatty acids were palmitoleic, palmitic and oleic acids (33?5, 29?5 and 11?0 % and 18, 32 and 31 %, respectively). 3-Hydroxy lauric acid was the only hydroxy fatty acid detected. Thirteen different compounds that belonged to two types of phospholipid (phosphatidylethylamine and phosphatidylglycerol) were identified. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that this isolate represents a distinct phyletic lineage within the c-Proteobacteria and has about 94?4 % sequence similarity to Oceanobacter kriegii (the closest bacterial species with a validly published name). The deduced protein sequence of the putative alkane hydrolase, AlkB, of strain MIL-1 T is related to the corresponding enzymes of Alcanivorax borkumensis and Pseudomonas oleovorans (81 and 80 % similarity, respectively). On the basis of the analyses performed, Thalassolituus oleivorans gen. nov., sp. nov. is described. Strain MIL-1 T (=DSM 14913 T =LMG 21420 T ) is the type and only strain of T. oleivorans.

Ecological succession leads to chemosynthesis in mats colonizing wood in sea water

“…Succession in chemosynthetic wood fall mats D Kalenitchenko et al Yücel et al, 2013;Kalenitchenko et al, 2015). During this first stage of mat formation, the Epsilonproteobacteria shared their habitat with seven Gammaproteobacteria OTUs related to the aerobic genera Thalassolituus and Marinomonas (Yakimov et al, 2004;Prabagaran et al, 2005). Our results, together with observations made on a sulfideoxidizing community in the Black sea (Jørgensen et al, 1991), suggest that this first, potentially sulfide-oxidizing mat community, has an important role in protecting the wood fall surrounding environment against hydrogen sulfide produced during the wood decay.…”

Bermanella marisrubri gen. nov., sp. nov., a genome-sequenced gammaproteobacterium from the Red Sea

“…The same results were reported for Oleispira antarctica, Oceanobacter kriegii and T. oleivorans except that, in the case of Oleispira antarctica, nitrate was used for anaerobic respiration (Baumann et al, 1972;Bowditch et al, 1984;Yakimov et al, 2003Yakimov et al, , 2004. Strain RED65 T was negative for arginine dihydrolase, ornithine decarboxylase and indole production from tryptophan.…”

“…7H 2 O in half-strength Table 1. Phenotypic characteristics that serve to differentiate strain RED65 T from the type strains of closely related species Strains: 1, RED65 T (data from this study); 2, Oleispira antarctica RB-8 T (data from Yakimov et al, 2003); 3, Oceanobacter kriegii 197 T (Baumann et al, 1972;Bowditch et al, 1984;Sakane & Yokota, 1994); 4, T. oleivorans MIL-1 T (Yakimov et al, 2004). +, Positive; 2, negative; W, weakly positive.…”

“…Phylogenetic analysis revealed that strain RED65 T was only distantly related to the species shown in Fig. 1 (Yakimov et al, 2003(Yakimov et al, , 2004. The DNA G+C content of Oleispira antarctica RB-8 T (41.6 mol%) is relatively close to that of strain RED65 T , but that of T. oleivorans MIL-1 T (53.6 mol%) differs by almost 10 units; that of Oceanobacter kriegii 197 T (56.1 mol%) exceeds the G+C content of RED65 T by an even greater margin, being at a level that is usually regarded as a threshold for genus separation (Trüper & Schleifer, 2006).…”

Obligate oil-degrading marine bacteria

“…The three other genera of the OHCB group, despite being represented by numerous members, are monophyletic and represented by the three type species Oleiphilus messinensis [14], Oleispira antarctica [15] and Thalassolituus oleivorans [16].…”