''Alteromonas'' is a genus of

Pseudomonadota Pseudomonadota (synonym Proteobacteria) is a major phylum of Gram-negative bacteria. The renaming of phyla in 2021 remains controversial among microbiologists, many of whom continue to use the earlier names of long standing in the literature. The ...

found in sea water, either in the open ocean or in the

coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

. It is

Gram-negative Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain the crystal violet stain used in the Gram staining method of bacterial differentiation. They are characterized by their cell envelopes, which are composed of a thin peptidoglycan cell wall ...

. Its cells are curved rods with a single polar

flagellum A flagellum (; ) is a hairlike appendage that protrudes from certain plant and animal sperm cells, and from a wide range of microorganisms to provide motility. Many protists with flagella are termed as flagellates. A microorganism may have f ...

Etymology

The etymology of the genus is Latin ''alter'' -''tera'' -''terum'', another, different; ''monas'' (μονάς), a noun with a special meaning in microbiology used to mean unicellular organism; to give ''Alteromonas'', another monad Members of the genus ''Alteromonas'' can be referred to as alteromonads (''viz.'' Trivialisation of names).

Authority

The genus was described by Baumann ''et al.'' in 1972, but was emended by Novick and Tyler 1985 to accommodate ''Alteromonas luteoviolacea'' (now ''

Pseudoalteromonas luteoviolacea ''Pseudoalteromonas luteoviolacea'' is a marine bacterium which was isolated from seawater near Nice. History ''P. luteoviolacea'' was originally isolated in 1976 and named ''Alteromonas luteo-violaceus''. However, this name was amended to ''A ...

''), Gauthier et al. 1995, who split the genus in two (''

Pseudoalteromonas ''Pseudoalteromonas'' is a genus of marine bacteria. In 1995, Gauthier ''et al'' proposed ''Pseudoalteromonas'' as a new genus to be split from ''Alteromonas''. The ''Pseudoalteromonas'' species that were described before 1995 were originally pa ...

'') and Van Trappen et al. in 2004 to accommodate ''Alteromonas stellipolaris''.

Species

The genus contains eight species (but 21 basonyms), namely * '' A. addita'' (Ivanova ''et al''. 2005, added, joined to the genus) * '' A. genovensis'' ( Vandecandelaere ''et al''. 2008, ''genovensis'', pertaining to Genova (Genoa), Italy, where the seawater electroactive

biofilm A biofilm comprises any syntrophic consortium of microorganisms in which cells stick to each other and often also to a surface. These adherent cells become embedded within a slimy extracellular matrix that is composed of extracellular ...

s originated) * '' A. hispanica'' ( Martínez-Checa ''et 'al''. 2005, ''hispanica'', Spanish) * '' A. litorea'' ( Yoon ''et al.''. 2004, ''litorea'', of the shore) * '' A. macleodii'' ( Baumann ''et al.'' 1972 (type species of the genus, named after R.A. MacLeod, a Canadian microbiologist who pioneered studies on the biochemical bases of the Na⁺ requirement of marine bacteria) * '' A. marina'' ( Yoon ''et al.''. 2003, ''marina'', of the sea, marine) * '' A. simiduii'' ( Chiu ''et al.''. 2007, named after Usio Simidu, a Japanese microbiologist, for his work on marine microbiology) * '' A. stellipolaris'' ( Van Trappen ''et al.''. 2004, ''stella'', star; ''polaris'', polar, referring to the ''Polarstern'' (AWI, Bremerhaven), the name of the vessel that was used to collect the sample from which the organisms were isolated) * '' A. tagae'' ( Chiu ''et al.''. 2007, named after Nobuo Taga, a pioneering Japanese marine microbiologist)

Former alteromonads

Many alteromonads were reclassified as members of ''

'' in 1995 * '' P. atlantica'' (Akagawa-Matsushita ''et al.''. 1992, ''atlantica'', pertaining to the Atlantic Ocean) * '' P. aurantia'' (Gauthier and Breittmayer 1979, ''aurantia'', orange-colored) * '' P. carrageenovora'' (Akagawa-Matsushita ''et al.''. 1992, ''carrageenum'', named for carrageenan; ''vorare'', to devour - carrageenan decomposing) * '' P. citrea'' (Gauthier 1977, ''citrea'', of or pertaining to the citrus-tree, intended to mean lemon-yellow) * '' P. denitrificans'' (Enger ''et al.''. 1987, ''denitrificans'', denitrifying) * '' P. distincta'' (Romanenko ''et al.'' 1995, ''distincta'', separate, distinct) * '' P. elyakovii'' (Ivanova ''et al.''. 1997, named after G.B. Elyakov for his work in microbial biotechnology) * '' P. espejiana'' (Chan ''et al.''. 1978, named after Espejo, a Chilean microbiologist who isolated one of the first lipid-containing bacteriophages) * '' P. fuliginea'' (Romanenko ''et al.''. 1995, ''fuliginea'', like soot, sooty) * '' P. haloplanktis'' ((ZoBell and Upham 1944) Reichelt and Baumann 1973, ''hals'' ''halos'', sea; -''ê'' -''on'', wandering, roaming, sea-wandering) *'' P. luteoviolacea'' ((''ex'' Gauthier 1976) Gauthier 1982, ''luteus'', yellow; ''violaceus'' - violet-colored; ''luteoviolacea'', yellow-violet) * '' P. nigrifaciens'' ((''ex'' White 1940) Baumann ''et'' ''al''. 1984, ''Niger'', black; ''facio'', to make to give ''nigrifaciens'', making black) * '' P. rubra'' (Gauthier 1976, ''rubra'', red) * '' P. tetraodonis'' (Simidu ''et al.''. 1990, ''tetraodonis'', of ''Tetraodon'', a genus of plectognathic fishes etraodontidae * '' P. undina'' (Chan ''et al.''. 1978, ''undina'', undine, water nymph) Other former alteromonads: * '' Marinomonas communis'' (Baumann ''et al.''. 1972, ''communis'', common) * '' Marinomonas vaga'' (Baumann ''et al.''. 1972, ''vaga'', wandering) * ''

Shewanella colwelliana ''Shewanella'' is the sole genus included in the marine bacteria family Shewanellaceae. Some species within it were formerly classed as '' Alteromonas''. ''Shewanella'' consists of facultatively anaerobic Gram-negative rods, most of which are f ...

'' (Weiner ''et al.''. 1988, named after Rita Colwell for her contributions to marine microbiology) * '' Shewanella hanedai'' (Jensen ''et al.''. 1981, named after Y. Haneda, a Japanese biologist who pioneered studies on bioluminescence) * ''

Shewanella putrefaciens ''Shewanella putrefaciens'' is a Gram-negative pleomorphic bacterium. It has been isolated from marine environments, as well as from anaerobic sandstone in the Morrison Formation in New Mexico. ''S. putrefaciens'' is also a facultative anaerobe ...

'' ((''ex'' Derby and Hammer 1931) Lee ''et al.''. 1981, ''putrefaciens'', making rotten, putrefying)

References

External links

Cancerweb's entry
{{Taxonbar, from=Q3762368 Alteromonadales Bacteria genera Bioluminescent bacteria