Rhodovulum bhavnagarense sp. nov., a phototrophic alphaproteobacterium isolated from a pink pond

Abstract

An oval to rod-shaped, Gram-stain-negative, phototrophic bacterium, strain JA738T, was isolated from a sediment sample collected from a pink pond. Strain JA738T was non-motile and had vesicular-type intracellular photosynthetic membranes. Bacteriochlorophyll a and carotenoids of the spheroidene series were present as the major photosynthetic pigments. Strain JA738T required thiamine and pantothenate for growth. The major cellular fatty acids were C18: 1ω7c, C18: 1ω5c, C18: 0 and C18: 1ω7c11-methyl; minor amounts of C10: 0 3-OH and C16: 0 were also present. The major quinone was Q-10 and major polar lipids were phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and two unidentified sulfolipids (SL1-2). Phylogenetic analysis on the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain JA738T clustered with species of the genus Rhodovulum in the class Alphaproteobacteria. Strain JA738T was most closely related to Rhodovulum adriaticum DSM 2781T (96.4% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity) and other members of the genus Rhodovulum (,96.1 %). On the basis of phenotypic and molecular genetic evidence, it is proposed that strain JA738T should be classified as a novel species of the genus Rhodovulum for which the name Rhodovulum bhavnagarense sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is JA738T (=DSM 24766T=KCTC 15110T).© G 2012 IUMS.