Halomonas xinjiangensis sp. nov., a halotolerant bacterium isolated from a salt lake

A novel bacterium, TRM 0175(T), belonging to the genus Halomonas, was isolated from a soil sample taken from a salt lake in Xinjiang Province, north-west China. The isolate was Gram-negative, aerobic, rod-shaped and motile by means of peritrichous flagella. It was catalase-positive and oxidase-negative. Growth occurred at NaCl concentrations of 0-20 % (optimum at 10-13 %), at 15-50 degrees C (optimum at 37 degrees C) and at pH 6.0-9.0 (optimum at pH 7.0). Metabolism was respiratory with oxygen as terminal electron acceptor. Acid was produced from D-ribose, D- and L-arabinose, D-xylose, D-galactose, D-mannose, L-rhamnose, cellobiose, maltose, trehalose and D- and L-fucose and was produced weakly from aesculin. The predominant ubiquinone was Q-9. The major fatty acids were C(18 : 1)omega7c and C(19 : 0) cyclo omega8c. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 60.0 mol%. The affiliation of strain TRM 0175(T) with the genus Halomonas was confirmed by 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons. The most closely related species was Halomonas anticariensis; 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity between H. anticariensis FP35(T) and strain TRM 0175(T) was 95.3 %. Phenotypically, some characteristics of TRM 0175(T) differed from those of H. anticariensis. On the basis of data from this polyphasic study, strain TRM 0175(T) represents a novel species of the genus Halomonas, for which the name Halomonas xinjiangensis sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is TRM 0175(T) (=CCTCC AB 208329(T) =KCTC 22608(T)).