''Gallaecimonas'' is a recently described genus of

bacteria Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micr ...

. The first described species of this genus was ''Gallaecimonas pentaromativorans'' gen. nov., sp. nov. isolated by Rodríguez Blanco et al. in 2010 from intertidal sediments of the

ria A ria (; , feminine noun derived from ''río'', river) is a coastal inlet formed by the partial submergence of an unglaciated river valley. It is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea. Definitions Typically rias have a dendriti ...

Corcubión Corcubión (AGAL ortography: ''Corcubiom'') is a municipality in the province of A Coruña, in the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain. It belongs to the comarca of Fisterra. It is located on the river with the same name. History Corcubi� ...

( Galicia,

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

). It is a

Gram-negative Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that, unlike gram-positive bacteria, do not retain the crystal violet stain used in the Gram staining method of bacterial differentiation. Their defining characteristic is that their cell envelope consists ...

, rod-shaped, halotolerant bacteriumJ.P. Euzéby: List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclatur
Genus Gallaecimonas
/ref> in the class

Gammaproteobacteria ''Gammaproteobacteria'' is a class of bacteria in the phylum ''Pseudomonadota'' (synonym ''Proteobacteria''). It contains about 250 genera, which makes it the most genus-rich taxon of the Prokaryotes. Several medically, ecologically, and scienti ...

. It can degrade high molecular mass

polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon A Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) is any member of a class of organic compounds that is composed of multiple fused aromatic rings. Most are produced by the incomplete combustion of organic matter— by engine exhaust fumes, tobacco, incine ...

s of 4 and 5 rings. The

16S rRNA 16S ribosomal RNA (or 16Svedberg, S rRNA) is the RNA component of the 30S subunit of a prokaryotic ribosome (SSU rRNA). It binds to the Shine-Dalgarno sequence and provides most of the SSU structure. The genes coding for it are referred to as ...

gene sequences of the type strain CEE_131(T) proved to be distantly related to those of ''

Rheinheimera ''Rheinheimera'' is a genus of bacteria from the family of Chromatiaceae The Chromatiaceae are one of the two families of purple sulfur bacteria, together with the Ectothiorhodospiraceae. They belong to the order Chromatiales of the class Gamm ...

'' and ''

Serratia ''Serratia'' is a genus of Gram-negative, facultatively anaerobic, rod-shaped bacteria of the family Enterobacteriaceae. They are typically 1–5 μm in length, do not produce spores, and can be found in water, soil, plants, and animals. Some mem ...

''. Its

G+C content G, or g, is the seventh letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages, and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''gee'' (pronounced ), plural ''gees''. The lower ...

was 41.7 mol%. This bacterial ability to degrade high mass polycyclic aromatic compounds is interesting because these compounds are common pollutants spilled in the environment by human activities and tend to accumulate and persist adsorbed to the organic fraction of sediments. Many of those containing 4 to 6 rings are mutagenic, cancerogenic or teratogenic. The genus name comes from the ancient

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

name of Galicia, Gallaecia, and monas, “monad”, and the term pentaromativorans (pent + aromati + vorans) refers to “degrading/devouring aromatic compounds with five rings”. In 2012, Jianning Wang et al. isolated the species ''Gallaecimonas xiamenensis'' sp. nov. from a crude oil degrading

consortium A consortium () is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations, or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a ...

of microorganisms found in

Xiamen Xiamen,), also known as Amoy ( ; from the Zhangzhou Hokkien pronunciation, zh, c=, s=, t=, p=, poj=Ē͘-mûi, historically romanized as Amoy, is a sub-provincial city in southeastern Fujian, People's Republic of China, beside the Taiwan Stra ...

island (

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

). Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences of the strain 3C-1-T indicated it was a member of ''Gallaecimonas''. It is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped, motile bacterium incapable of nitrate reduction, with a G+C content of 61.3 mol%. Jianning Wang, Qiliang Lai, Xue Duan, Yuanyuan Fu, Liping Wang, Wanpeng Wang, Zongze Shao1
Gallaecimonas xiamenensis sp. nov., isolated from a crude oil-degrading consortium, enriched from the surface sea water around the Xiamen Island
IJSEM June 2012 ijs.0.042283-0 []

References

External links

Image from the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology
{{Taxonbar, from=Q5518819 Gammaproteobacteria Bacteria genera Enigmatic bacteria taxa