Crystal Johnson, PhD

A novel bacterial strain, APC 3343 T , was isolated from the intestine of a deep-sea loosejaw dragon fish, Malacosteus niger , caught at a depth of 1000 m in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. Cells were aerobic, rod-shaped, yellow/orange-pigmented, non-motile and Gram-negative. Growth of strain APC 3343 T was observed at 4–30 °C (optimum, 21–25 °C), pH 5.5–10 (optimum, pH 7–8) and 0.5–8 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 2–4 %). Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain APC 3343 T was most closely related to members of the genus Winogradskyella , with the most closely related type strains being Winogradskyella algae Kr9-9 T (98.46 % identity), Winogradskyella damuponensis F081-2 T (98.07 %), Winogradskyella eximia CECT 7946 T (97.93 %), Winogradskyella litoriviva KMM 6491 T (97.79 %) and Winogradskyella endarachnes HL2-2 T (97.79 %). Major fatty acids (>10 % of total) were iso-C 16 : 0 3-OH, iso-C 15 : 0 , anteiso-C 15 : 0 and iso-C 17 : 0 3-OH. The predominant respiratory quinone was menaquinone-6 (MK-6). Polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, three unknown aminolipids and eight unknown lipids. The draft genome sequence was 3.8 Mb in length with a G+C content of 33.43 mol%. Based on the phenotypic characteristics and phylogenetic analysis, strain APC 3343 T is deemed to be a novel species of the genus Winogradskyella <