Description of Lunatimonas salinarum sp. nov

A Gram-stain-negative, crescent-shaped, non-motile, aerobic bacterium was isolated from a saltern at Nari along the Bhavnagar coast, Gujarat, India. The strain designated JC344T was oxidase- and catalase-positive. The 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis and sequence comparison data indicated that JC344T represented a member of the genus Lunatimonas and was closely related to the only species of the genus, Lunatimonas lonarensis AK24T (95.5 %). The DNA G+C content of JC344T was 43 mol%. JC344T has phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and four unidentified polar lipids. MK-7 is the only respiratory quinone. The major (>10 %) fatty acids of strain JC344T are iso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C15 : 0 and summed feature 9 (iso-C17 : 1ω9c and/or C16 : 0 10-methyl). On the basis of physiological, genotypic, phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic analyses, we conclude that JC344T represents a novel species of the genus Lunatimonas, for which the name Lunatimonas salinarum sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is JC344T (=KCTC 42988T=LMG 29259T).