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. 2025 May;75(5):006768.
doi: 10.1099/ijsem.0.006768.

Janthinobacterium aestuarii sp. nov., a novel violacein-producing bacterium isolated from the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., USA

Christina Pavloudi  1   2 , Maximilian D Shlafstein  1 , Yesmarie T De La Flor  3 , Emma M Smith  4 , Ana C Peñuela  4 , Erin Papke  3 , Lausanne Oliver  1 , Kaitlynn Slattery  1 , Guinevere Lissner  1 , Lívia C Coelho  3 , David K Oline  5 , Patrick Videau  6 , Wendy K Strangman  4 , Blake Ushijima  3 , Jimmy H Saw  1
Affiliations

Janthinobacterium aestuarii sp. nov., a novel violacein-producing bacterium isolated from the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., USA

Christina Pavloudi et al. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 2025 May.

Abstract

Strain TB1-E2-13T was isolated from water collected from the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., USA, due to the bright purple colour of its colonies, and was taxonomically evaluated with a polyphasic approach. Comparison of a partial 16S rRNA gene sequence found that strain TB1-E2-13T was most similar to species in the Janthinobacterium genus. For more precise taxonomic inference, a phylogenomic analysis was conducted and indicated that strain TB1-E2-13T was most closely related to Janthinobacterium lividum, 'Janthinobacterium kumbetense', Janthinobacterium rivuli and Janthinobacterium violaceinigrum. Analyses of genomic indices found that pairwise comparisons between strain TB1-E2-13T and other members of the Janthinobacterium genus returned values below the threshold of species novelty. Based on a polyphasic characterization and identifying differences in genomic and taxonomic data, strain TB1-E2-13T represents a novel species, for which the name Janthinobacterium aestuarii sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is TB1-E2-13T (=ATCC TSD-339T=JCM 36076T).

Keywords: Janthinobacterium; novel species; tidal basin; violacein; water.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

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