A novel species of the genus Gramella, designated ASW11-100T, was isolated from a tidal flat sediment in the Yellow Sea, PR China. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences and single-copy orthologous clusters revealed that strain ASW11-100T belonged to the genus Gramella, and exhibited 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities of 98.9, 98.8 and 98.7 % to Gramella sabulilitoris HSMS-1T, Gramella sediminilitoris GHTF-27T and Gramella forsetii KT0803T, respectively. The genome of strain ASW11-100T harbours 2950 protein-coding genes and 105 carbohydrate-active enzymes including 38 glycoside hydrolases. Seventeen of the glycoside hydrolases are organized in five distinct polysaccharide utilization loci, which are predicted to involve in the degradation of starch, glucans, arabinoxylans, arabinomannan, arabinans and arabinogalactans. The genomic DNA G+C content was 37.3 mol%. The digital DNA-DNA hybridization and average nucleotide identity values between strain ASW11-100T and its closely related relatives were in ranges of 19.8-23.9% and 76.6-80.9 %, respectively. Cells of the isolate were Gram-negative, aerobic, non-flagellated and short rod-shaped. Carotenoid pigments were produced, but flexirubin-type pigments were absent. The major fatty acids (>10 %) were iso-C15 : 0, iso-C17 : 0 3-OH and summed feature 3 (C16 : 1 ω6c and/or C16 : 1 ω7c). The sole respiratory quinone was menaquinone-6 and the major polar lipid was phosphatidylethanolamine. Based on the above polyphasic evidence, strain ASW11-100T should be considered to represent a novel Gramella species, for which the name Gramella sediminis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is ASW11-100T (=KCTC 82502T=MCCC 1K05580T).
Keywords: Gramella sediminis; polyphasic taxonomy; sediment.