A novel bacterial strain, designated MBLB4367 T , was isolated from the seacoast soil of Seo-do, Dokdo, Republic of Korea. The strain is Gram-stain-positive, sporulating, and rod-shaped. It grows within a temperature range of 10–45 °C, with an optimum at 30 °C, and thrives at pH 6.0–8.0 (optimum pH 7.0) and NaCl concentrations of 0–2% (w/v), with optimal growth at 0%. Phylogenetic analysis based on the 16 S rRNA gene sequence revealed that strain MBLB4367 T was most closely related to Paenibacillus contaminans CKOBP-6 T , sharing 98.7% sequence similarity. The predominant fatty acids identified in this strain were anteiso-C 15:0 and iso-C 15:0 , while menaquinone-7 serves as the major respiratory quinone. The polar lipid profile included diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, and phosphatidyl- N -methylethanolamine as the major lipids. The genome of strain MBLB4367 T has a size of 8.7 Mb and a G + C content of 52.8%. Comparative genomic analyses, including average nucleotide identity (67.1–81.2%), average amino acid identity (64.1–83.6%), and DNA-DNA hybridization values (21.9–30.0%), confirm that this strain represented a novel species distinct from previously described closely related species of the genus Paenibacillus . Based on polyphasic taxonomic data, strain MBLB4367 T is proposed as a novel species within the genus Paenibacillus , for which the name Paenibacillus litoralis sp. nov. The type strain is MBLB4367 T (= KCTC 43804 T = JCM 37834 T ).
Hwang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.