Lentibacillus kimchii sp. nov., an extremely halophilic bacterium isolated from kimchi, a Korean fermented vegetable

A Gram-positive, aerobic, non-motile and extremely halophilic bacterial strain, designated K9 T , was isolated from kimchi, a Korean fermented food. The strain was observed as endospore-forming rod-shaped cells showing oxidase and catalase activity. It was found to grow at 10.0–30.0 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 15.0–20.0 %), pH 7.0–8.0 (optimum, pH 7.5) and 15–40 °C (optimum, 30 °C). The polar lipids of strain K9 T were identified as phosphatidylglycerol, three unidentified phospholipids and an unidentified glycolipid. The isoprenoid quinone was identified as menaquinone-7. The major cellular fatty acids (>20 % of the total) were found to be anteisio-C 15:0 and anteisio-C 17:0 . The cell wall peptidoglycan composition was determined to contain meso-diaminopimelic acid. The G + C content of genomic DNA was determined to be 48.2 mol %. Phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that the isolated strain is closely related to Lentibacillus salinarum AHS-1 T (96.7 % sequence similarity). Based on its phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic data, strain K9 T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Lentibacillus , for which the name Lentibacillus kimchii sp. nov., is proposed. The type strain is K9 T (=KACC 18490 T = JCM 30234 T ).