Leeuwenhoekiella marinoflava

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Classification

Higher order taxa

Domain: Bacteria

Phylum: Bacteroidetes
Class: Flavobacteria
Order: Flavobacteriales
Family: Flavobacteriaceae
Genus: Leeuwenhoekiella

Species

Leeuwenhoekiella marinoflava


Genus Leeuwenhoekiella

The genus Leeuwenhoekiella takes its namesake from Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, the Dutch scientist whose discovery of microbial life in the 17th century heralded the inception of microbiology as a scientific discipline. Members of the genus are marine bacteria that exhibit gliding motility and are yellow-colored, heterotrophic strict aerobes. The other members of the genus having been described to date are L. palythoae, L. blandensis, and L. aequorea.


Morphology and Characteristics

Leeuwenhoekiella marinoflava, formerly classified as Cytophaga marinoflava, is a yellow, rod-shaped, Gram-negative bacterium which inhabits marine environments and exhibits motility by means of gliding. The species is a strict aerobe and is halotolerant, growing optimally at an NaCl concentration of 1-3%, but with growth possible at concentrations from 0-15%.


Growth can occur from 4-37°C, with optimal growth achieved at 21-23°C, though the species exhibits relatively slow growth even under optimal conditions. No data are available regarding the pH levels most conducive to growth. Similarly little information is available regarding the genome of L. marinoflava, but its G+C content is 38 mol%.


Metabolism

L. marinoflava is a chemo-organotrophic bacterium which utilizes L-arabinose, D-glucose, D-lactose, D-mannose, and D-sucrose in the production of ATP by means of aerobic respiration. The species can additionally ferment D-galactose and glycerol, and its main fatty acids are 15 : 0 iso, 15 : 1 iso G, 17 : 0 iso 3-OH, iso 17 : 1ω9c.


The bacterium exhibits positive cytochrome oxidase, catalase, β-galactosidase, and alkaline phosphatase activities and is capable of hydrolyzing starch, casein, and gelatin, though it cannot hydrolyze DNA, urea, cellulose, or chitin and is incapable of reducing nitrate. L. marinoflava also cannot decompose tryptophan and produces neither hydrogen sulfide nor acetoin.


Pathology

There are no reports of pathogenicity attributed to L. marinoflava, though antibiotic testing reveals that it is susceptible to benzylpenicillin, carbenicillin, lincomycin, doxycycline, erythromycin and chloramphenicol.


References

Nedashkovskaya, O., Vancanneyt, M., Dawyndt, P., Engelbeen, K., Vandemeulebroecke, K., Cleenwerck, I., Hoste, B., Mergaert, J., Tan, T., Frolova, G., Mikhailov, V., and Swings, J. "Reclassification of [Cytophaga] marinoflava Reichenbach 1989 as Leeuwenhoekiella marinoflava gen. nov., comb. nov. and description of Leeuwenhoekiella aequorea sp. nov.". International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. May 2005. vol. 55 no. 3. p. 1033-1038


Pinhassi, J., Bowman, J., Nedashkovskaya, O., Lekunberri, I., Consarnau, L., and Pedrós-Alió, C. "Leeuwenhoekiella blandensis sp. nov., a genome-sequenced marine member of the family Flavobacteriaceae." International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. July 2006. vol. 56 no. 7. p. 1489-1493


Nedashkovskaya, O., Vancanneyt, M., Kim, S., Zhukova, N., Han, J. and Mikhailov, V. "Leeuwenhoekiella palythoae sp. nov., a new member of the family Flavobacteriaceae." International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. December 2009. vol. 59 no. 12. p. 3074- 3077.


Verschuere, L., Fievez, V., Van Vooren, L, Verstraete, W. "The contribution of individual populations to the Biolog pattern of model microbial communities." FEMS Microbiology Ecology. December 1997. vol. 24, issue 4, p. 353–362.


Slonczewski, J., and Foster, J. 2014. Microbiology: An Evolving Science. Third edition. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.


Edited by Matt Wilkinson, student of Rachel Larsen at the University of Southern Maine.