Complete genome sequence of marine Roseobacter lineage member Monaibacterium sp. ALG8 with six plasmids isolated from seawater around brown algae

Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat/CRISPR-Associated Protein and Its Utility All at Sea: Status, Challenges, and Prospects

Initially discovered over 35 years ago in the bacterium Escherichia coli as a defense system against invasion of viral (or other exogenous) DNA into the genome, CRISPR/Cas has ushered in a new era of functional genetics and served as a versatile genetic tool in all branches of life science. CRISPR/Cas has revolutionized the methodology of gene knockout with simplicity and rapidity, but it is also powerful for gene knock-in and gene modification. In the field of marine biology and ecology, this tool has been instrumental in the functional characterization of 'dark' genes and the documentation of the functional differentiation of gene paralogs. Powerful as it is, challenges exist that have hindered the advances in functional genetics in some important lineages. This review examines the status of applications of CRISPR/Cas in marine research and assesses the prospect of quickly expanding the deployment of this powerful tool to address the myriad fundamental marine biology and biological oceanography questions.

Pontibrevibacter nitratireducens gen. nov., sp. nov., a member of the family Rhodobacteraceae isolated from seawater of the Indian Ocean and intertidal zone

Two Gram-stain-negative, facultatively anaerobic, non-motile, rod-shaped bacteria, strains h42T and ALG8, were isolated individually from the Indian Ocean and intertidal zone of Zhoushan, China. The results of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that the sequence similarity between strains h42T and ALG8 was 99.7 %, and the closest related strains were Monaibacterium marinum C7T (97.77 and 97.62 %) and Pontivivens insulae GYSW-23T (95.31 and 95.45 %). Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences shows that these two novel strains belong to a distinct new lineage of the family Rhodobacteraceae in the order Rhodobacterales . The average nucleotide identity and in silico DNA–DNA hybridization values between the two novel strains and M. marinum C7T and P. insulae GYSW-23T were 72.73–78.15 % and 19.70–20.80 %, respectively. The DNA G+C content of strains h42T and ALG8 was 62.36 % and 62.17 mol %. The major fatty acids (>10 %) in strain h42T were C18 : 0, C19 : 0 cyclo ω8c and summed feature 8 (C18 : 1 ω6c and/or C18 : 1 ω7c), and in strain ALG8 were C19 : 0 cyclo ω8c and summed feature 8 (C18 : 1ω6c and/or C18 : 1 ω7c). The predominant isoprenoid ubiquinone of the two novel strains was Q-10; their major polar lipids were identified as diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine, two unidentified glycolipids, an unidentified aminoglycolipid, an unidentified phospholipid and an unidentified lipid. Based on the results of the morphological, physiological, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic analysis of these two strains, a novel species of a new genus in the family Rhodobacteraceae is proposed, named as Pontibrevibacter nitratireducens gen. nov., sp. nov. The type strain and non-type strain of P. nitratireducens are h42T (=KCTC 72875T=CGMCC 1.17849T=MCCC 1K04735T) and ALG8 (=KCTC 82194=MCCC 1K04733).