Bacillus persepolensis sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium from a hypersaline lake

1 Extremophiles Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran 2 Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sevilla, 41012 Sevilla, Spain 3 Department of Biology, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Campus, Tehran, Iran Correspondence A. Ventosa ventosa{at}us.es A Gram-positive, moderately halophilic, endospore-forming bacterium, designated strain HS136 T , was isolated from the hypersaline lake Howz-Soltan in Iran. Cells were motile rods, producing ellipsoidal endospores at a central–subterminal position in non-swollen sporangia. Strain HS136 T , a strictly aerobic bacterium, grew between pH 7.0 and 10.0 (optimal growth at pH 8.0–8.5), between 25 and 45 °C (optimal growth at 40 °C) and at salinities of 5–20 % (w/v) NaCl, growing optimally at 10 % (w/v) NaCl. On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain HS136 T was shown to belong to the genus Bacillus within the phylum Firmicutes and showed closest phylogenetic similarity to Bacillus salarius BH169 T (95.2 %) and Bacillus qingdaonensis CM1 T (94.5 %). The DNA G+C content of this new isolate was 37.1 mol%. The major cellular fatty acids of strain HS136 T were iso-C 15 : 0 , anteiso-C 15 : 0 and anteiso-C 17 : 0 , and its polar lipid pattern consisted of phosphatidylglycerol and diphosphatidylglycerol. The isoprenoid quinone was MK-7. The peptidoglycan type is A1 , with meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. On the basis of polyphasic evidence from this study, Bacillus persepolensis sp. nov. is proposed, with strain HS136 T (=CCM 7595 T =DSM 21632 T =JCM 15720 T =LMG 25222 T ) as the type strain. The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain HS136 T is FM244839 .