Vibrio species are both ubiquitous and abundant in marine coastal waters, estuaries, ocean sediment, and aquaculture settings worldwide. We report here the isolation, characterization, and genome sequence of a novel Vibrio species, Vibrio antiquarius, isolated from a mesophilic bacterial community associated with hydrothermal vents located along the East Pacific Rise, near the southwest coast of Mexico. Genomic and phenotypic analysis revealed V. antiquarius is closely related to pathogenic Vibrio species, namely Vibrio alginolyticus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Vibrio harveyi, and Vibrio vulnificus, but sufficiently divergent to warrant a separate species status. The V. antiquarius genome encodes genes and operons with ecological functions relevant to the environment conditions of the deep sea and also harbors factors known to be involved in human disease caused by freshwater, coastal, and brackish water vibrios. The presence of virulence factors in this deep-sea Vibrio species suggests a far more fundamental role of these factors for their bacterial host. Comparative genomics revealed a variety of genomic events that may have provided an important driving force in V. antiquarius evolution, facilitating response to environmental conditions of the deep sea.W ith more than 110 recognized species, the genus Vibrio comprises a diverse group of heterotrophic bacteria, of which many are known pathogens, causing disease in animals and humans (1, 2). Vibrio cholerae is the most notorious because it is the causative agent of cholera. Vibrio vulnificus and Vibrio parahaemolyticus cause severe illness in humans and are associated with consumption of contaminated seafood (3, 4). Vibrio harveyi (5), Vibrio anguillarum (6, 7), and V. parahaemolyticus (8) continue to cause substantial economic losses to the aquaculture industry worldwide.Vibrios demonstrate a wide range of niche specialization: for example, free-living, attached to biotic and abiotic surfaces, and resident in both estuarine and marine habitats (9). The deep sea constitutes the largest habitat of the biosphere that supports microbial communities across three domains of life and represents an environment where physiochemical parameters-such as low temperature, high salinity, and high pressure-modulate community structure (10, 11). Several studies have shown the presence of physiologically, metabolically, and phylogenetically diverse mesophilic microbial communities in the deep sea, including Vibrio species (12-15). Barotolerant Vibrio spp. have been isolated from deep-sea sediment and from the gut microflora of invertebrates and fish collected from a variety of deepsea habitats, including hydrothermal vents (16,17). For example, strains of Vibrio, Aeromonas, and Pseudomonas spp. were isolated from mud-water samples collected at a depth of 4,940 m, 150 miles east of Cape Canaveral, Florida (18). Several culturedependent and -independent studies have confirmed the ubiquity of vibrios, and suggested Vibrio populations generally comprise approximately 1% (by molecular...