Flavobacterium pygoscelis sp. nov., isolated from a chinstrap penguin chick (Pygoscelis antarcticus)

Abstract

Strain I-SCBP12nT, a novel Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-spore-forming, motile-by-gliding and rod-shaped bacterium, was isolated from a chinstrap penguin chick (Pygoscelis antarcticus) during a 2015 expedition to the Chilean Antarctic territory. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing confirmed that strain I-SCBP12nT belonged to the genus Flavobacterium , being closely related to strains Flavobacterium chryseum P3160T (98.52 %), Flavobacterium hercynium WB 4.2-33T (98.47 %) and Flavobacterium chilense LM-19-FpT (98.47 %). The genome size of strain I-SCBP12nT was 3.69 Mb with DNA G+C content 31.95 mol%. Genomic comparisons of strain I-SCBP12nT with type species in the genus Flavobacterium were performed, with obtained average values near 75.17 and 84.33 % for the blast and MUMer analyses of average nucleotide identity, respectively, and 0.86 for the tetranucleotides frequency analysis. These values are far from the accepted species cut-off values. Strain I-SCBP12nT contained MK-6 as the predominant menaquinone and the major polar lipids were aminophospholipid, an unidentified aminolipid and unidentified lipids. The predominant fatty acids (> 5 %) were iso-C14 : 0, iso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C15 : 0, iso-C16 : 0, iso-C16 : 1, iso-C16 : 0 3-OH, C15 : 1 ω6c and summed feature 3 (C16 : 1 ω7c/C16 : 1 ω6c). Phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genomic data supported the assignment of strain I-SCBP12nT (=CECT 30404T=RGM 3223T) to a novel species of Flavobacterium , for which the name Flavobacterium pygoscelis sp. nov.is proposed.