Grimontia sedimenti sp. nov., isolated from benthic sediments near coral reefs south of Kuwait

A Gram-stain-negative, rod and rod-curved shaped motile bacterium designated strain S25(T) was obtained from benthic sediment collected near the Kubbar Island coral reefs south of Kuwait. Phenotypic analysis revealed that strain S25(T) was slightly halophilic, mesophilic and facultative anaerobic, fermenting d-glucose, d-ribose, d-mannose, d-mannitol, maltose, fructose, gentiobiose, cellobiose, melibiose, trehalose and sucrose. It was positive for oxidase and indole production and negative for arginine dihydrolase and lysine and ornithine decarboxylases. It contained C(16 : 1) ω7c/C(16 : 1) ω6c (summed feature 3), C(18 : 1) ω7c (summed feature 8) and C(16 : 0) as the major fatty acids. Strain S25(T) grew optimally at 30 °C and pH 8 in the presence of 3 % (w/v) NaCl. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA sequences revealed that strain S25(T) is related to species of the genus Grimontia, having 99.15 % similarity to ‘Grimontia indica’ AK16(T), 99.08 % to Grimontia celer 96-237(T) and 98.66 % to Grimontia marina IMCC 5001(T). The DNA G+C content was 48.8 mol% and the full genome analysis for the strain S25(T) showed that the bacterium has a genome size of 5 158 621 bp and contains 4730 predicted protein-encoding genes. The average nucleotide identity values between the S25(T) genome and the genomes of its nearest matches ranged between 81.39 and 94.16 %. The strain was distinguishable from the phylogenetically related genera through differences in several phenotypic properties. On the basis of the phenotypic, phylogenetic and genetic data, strain S25(T) represents a novel species in the genus Grimontia, for which the name Grimontia sedimenti sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Grimontia sedimenti is S25(T) (=DSM 28878(T)=LMG 28315(T)).