Maioricimonas rarisocia gen. nov., sp. nov., a novel planctomycete isolated from marine sediments close to Mallorca Island

Planctomycetes are ubiquitous bacteria with environmental and biotechnological relevance. Axenic cultures of planctomycetal strains are the basis to analyse their unusual biology and largely uncharacterised metabolism in more detail. Here, we describe strain Mal4(T) isolated from marine sediments close to Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Strain Mal4(T) displays common planctomycetal features, such as division by polar budding and the presence of fimbriae and crateriform structures on the cell surface. Cell growth was observed at ranges of 10–39 °C (optimum at 31 °C) and pH 6.5–9.0 (optimum at 7.5). The novel strain shows as pear-shaped cells of 2.0 ± 0.2 × 1.4 ± 0.1 µm and is one of the rare examples of orange colony-forming Planctomycetes. Its genome has a size of 7.7 Mb with a G+C content of 63.4%. Phylogenetically, we conclude that strain Mal4(T) (= DSM 100296(T )= LMG 29133(T)) is the type strain representing the type species of a novel genus, for which we propose the name Maioricimonas rarisocia gen. nov., sp. nov.