Marine cytophagales

Well characterized and easily maintained pure cultures are available. In the following some details are given on the strains suggested for sequencing :

Zobellia galactonivorans :

Zobellia galactonivorans strain DsijT was isolated from pieces of the red alga Delesseria sanguinea. DsijT exhibited spreading growth on agar plates forming yellow-orange colonies of 1 mm in diameter within 3 days at 20°C. Strain DsijT is a strictly aerobic, seawater-requiring, chemo-organotrophic, and heterotrophic bacterium, with an oxidative metabolism that uses oxygen as the electron acceptor. Nitrate can also be used as electron acceptor. The strain DsijT synthesizes flexirubin and is able to degrade proteinaceous substrates as well as several polysaccharides, such as agar, kappa- and iota-carrageenan, starch, and gelatin. It does not display any chitinolytic activity or cellulolytic activity, either against solid (paper) or amorphous (CMC) cellulose. By flow cytometry the size of the genome was estimated to be 4.10 Mbp. The 16S rDNA sequence of strain DsijT was found to be closely related to Zobellia [Cytophaga] uliginosa, with a sequence identity of 99.5%, the two forming a distinct deep branch in the family Flavobacteriaceae.

Salinibacter ruber M8 :

Salinibacter ruber is an extremely halophilic Gram negative, heterotrophic bacterium that shares its habitat with the halophilic Archaea and that ressembles them in many traits such as very high salt requirements, red pigmentation, very high intracellular KCl concentrations, and enzymes that are functional at high salt concentrations. Besides, Salinibacter proteins display the characteristic features of halophilic proteins i.e. a large excess of acidic amino acids, a low content of hydrophobic amino acids and a high content of serine.