Marinobacter lipolyticus sp. nov., a novel moderate halophile with lipolytic activity

In the course of a screening programme in hypersaline habitats of southern Spain to isolate halophilic bacteria that are able to produce different extracellular enzymes, a novel, moderately halophilic bacterium (strain SM19(T)) that displays lipolytic activity has been isolated and characterized. Strain SM19(T) is a Gram-negative rod that grows optimally in culture media that contain 7.5 % NaCl. The DNA G+C content was 57.0 mol%. According to phenotypic and genotypic data, this strain was assigned to the genus MARINOBACTER: However, 16S rDNA sequence similarity between strain SM19(T) and species of the genus Marinobacter was <96.7 %; this value is sufficiently low to propose its designation as a novel species. In addition, DNA-DNA hybridization with reference strains of close phylogenetic relatives was between 11 and 19 %. On the basis of these data, the inclusion of strain SM19(T) in the genus Marinobacter as a novel species is proposed, with the name Marinobacter lipolyticus sp. nov. The type strain of the novel species is SM19(T) (=DSM 15157(T)=NCIMB 13907(T)=CIP 107627(T)=CCM 7048(T)).