Aquibacillus salifodinae sp. nov., a novel bacterium isolated from a salt mine in Xinjiang province, China

A Gram-positive, rod-shaped, strictly aerobic bacterium, strain WSY08-1T, was isolated from a salt mine in Wensu county, Xinjiang province, China. Spherical to ellipsoidal endospores were observed to be formed in terminal swollen sporangia. Strain WSY08-1T was found to be able to grow at 20–45 °C (optimum 37 °C), 0–10 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 4 %, w/v) and pH 6.0–9.0 (optimum 7.0). Catalase and oxidase activities were observed to be positive. The cell-wall peptidoglycan of strain WSY08-1T was found to contain meso-diaminopimelic acid. Menaquinone-7 (MK-7) was identified as the predominant isoprenoid quinone. The polar lipids were found to consist of phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, an unknown glycolipid, two unknown phospholipids and an unknown lipid. The major cellular fatty acids were identified as anteiso-C15:0 and anteiso-C17:0. The DNA G+C content was determined to be 36.9 mol%. Analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence showed that strain WSY08-1T is closely related to Aquibacillus halophilus B6BT, Aquibacillus koreensis BH30097T and Aquibacillus albus YIM 93642T (97.6, 96.9 and 96.5 % similarity, respectively). The level of DNA–DNA relatedness between strains WSY08-1T and A. halophilus B6BT was 31.4 %. On the basis of its phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genotypic characteristics, strain WSY08-1T is considered to represent a novel species in the genus Aquibacillus, for which the name Aquibacillus salifodinae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is WSY08-1T (=JCM 19761T = CGMCC 1.12849T).