Heterotrophic bacteria from brackish water of the southern Baltic Sea: biochemical and molecular identification and characterisation

Abstract

Six bacterial strains isolated from the surface water of thesouthern Baltic Sea were described on the basis of their morphological,physiological and biochemical features, and were classified onthe basis of 16S rDNA sequence analysis. Comparative analysesof the 16S rDNA sequences of five of the six bacterial strainsexamined displayed a ≥98% similarity to the sequences availablein the NCBI GenBank. The 16S rDNA sequence of strain 2 sharedonly a 96% similarity with other published sequences, whichsuggests that this is a new, hitherto unknown species. The isolatedheterotrophic bacteria belong to the families Bacillaceae(strain 1), Flexibacteriaceae (strain 2), Sphingomonadaceae(strains 3, 5), Micrococcaceae (strain 4) and Aurantimonadaceae(strain 6).    This is the first study in which the polyphasic approach hasbeen applied to the identification of heterotrophic bacteriafrom the brackish waters of the Gulf of Gdańsk and Gdańsk Deep.