Bacillus chagannorensis sp. nov., a moderate halophile from a soda lake in Inner Mongolia, China

A Gram-positive, moderately halophilic, spore-forming bacterium, designated strain CG-15(T), was isolated from a soda lake, Lake Chagannor, in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. The cells were found to be motile short rods with ellipsoidal, terminal and deforming endospores. Strain CG-15(T), a facultatively anaerobic bacterium, grew at pH 5.8-11.0 (optimally at pH 8.5), at 6-40 degrees C (optimally at 37 degrees C) and at salinities of 3-20 % (w/v) total salts (optimally at 7 % w/v). On the basis of the results of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain CG-15(T) was shown to belong to the genus Bacillus (phylum Firmicutes), showing the greatest phylogenetic similarity with respect to Bacillus saliphilus (96.0 %). The DNA G+C content of the novel isolate was found to be 53.8 mol%. The major cellular fatty acids of strain CG-15(T) were anteiso-C(15 : 0), iso-C(15 : 0) and anteiso-C(17 : 0), and its polar lipids consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and three different unidentified phospholipids. The analysis of the quinones showed that MK-7 was the major menaquinone. The peptidoglycan type was A1gamma, with meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. On the basis of the data from this polyphasic study, strain CG-15(T) represents a novel species of the genus Bacillus, for which the name Bacillus chagannorensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is CG-15(T) (=CCM 7371(T)=CECT 7153(T)=CGMCC 1.6292(T)=DSM 18086(T)).