Gracilibacillus aidingensis sp. nov., a novel moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from Aiding salt lake

A novel Gram-positive, aerobe, moderately halophilic bacterium was isolated from saline soil of Aiding lake in Xinjiang, north-west of China, designated strain YIM 98001^T. Cells were rod-shaped, motile and grew at 5-20% (w/v) NaCl (optimum 10%), pH 6-10 (optimum pH 7.0) and 4-45 °C (optimum 37 °C). The major cellular fatty acids were anteiso C_15:0, anteiso C_17:0, iso C_15:0. The predominant respiratory quinone was MK-7. Diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphoglycolipid were the major polar lipids. Meso-diaminopimelic acid was the diagnostic diamino acid of the cell-wall peptidoglycan. The G+C content was 36.46 mol%. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that the strain belongs to the family Bacillaceae, with the highest sequence similarity to the type strain Gracilibacillus thailandensis TP2-8^T (96.84%), followed by Gracilibacillus saliphilus YIM 91119^T (96.78%) and Gracilibacillus ureilyticus MF38^T (96.57%), thus confirming the affiliation of strain YIM 98001^T to the genus Gracilibacillus. The polyphasic approach indicates that strain YIM 98001^T represents a novel species of the genus Gracilibacillus, for which the name Gracilibacillus aidingensis is proposed. The type strain is YIM 98001^T (=KCTC 42683^T = DSMZ 104330^T).