Vibrio mexicanus sp. nov., isolated from a cultured oyster Crassostrea corteziensis

Adrián González-Castillo, Julissa Enciso-Ibarrra, M. Carmen Bolán-Mejia, Sabela Balboa, Aide Lasa, Jesús L. Romalde, Hector Cabanillas-Beltrán, Bruno Gomez-Gil

A bacterial strain was taxonomically characterised by means of a genomic approach comprising 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA), the DNA G+C content, whole genome analyses (ANI and GGDC) and phenotypic characterisation. The strain CAIM 1540(T) was isolated from a cultured oyster Crassostrea corteziensis in La Cruz, Sinaloa state, México. The isolate was found to be catalase and oxidase positive, cells were observed to be motile, O/129-sensitive and facultatively anaerobic. The almost-complete 16S rRNA gene sequence placed this strain within the genus Vibrio; the closest related species were found to be Vibrio aestivus, Vibrio marisflavi, Vibrio maritimus and Vibrio variabilis with similarity values of 99.02, 97.05, 96.70, and 96.59 % respectively. MLSA of four housekeeping genes (ftsZ, gapA, recA, and topA) was performed with the closely related species. A draft genome sequence of strain CAIM 1540(T) was obtained. The DNA G+C content of this strain was determined to be 43.7 mol%.The ANI values with V. aestivus were 89.6 % (ANIb), 90.6 % (ANIm) and a GGDC value of 39.5 ± 2.5 % was obtained; with V. marisflavi the genomic similarities were 71.5 % (ANIb), 85.5 % (ANIm) and 20.2 ± 2.3 % (GGDC); with V. maritimus 72.6 % (ANIb), 85.7 % (ANIm) and 22.0 ± 2.0 % (GGDC); and with V. variabilis 72.6 % (ANIb), 85.8 % (ANIm) and 21.6 ± 1.6 % (GGDC). These ANI and GGDC values are below the threshold for the delimitation of prokaryotic species, i.e. 95-96 and 70 %, respectively. Phenotypic characters also showed differences with the closest related species analysed. The results presented here support the description of a novel species, for which the name Vibrio mexicanus sp. nov. is proposed, with strain CAIM 1540(T) (= CECT 8828(T), = DSM 100338(T)) as the type strain. In addition, we found that the recently described species Vibrio thalassae and Vibrio madracius might be a single species because the values of ANIb 95.8 %, ANIm 96.6 % and GGDC 70.2 ± 2.9 % are above the accepted species thresholds.