Aquibacillus sediminis sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from saltern soil

A Gram-stain-positive, moderately halophilic bacterium, designated strain BH258^T, was isolated from solar saltern sediment sampled at Shinan in the Republic of Korea. Cells of strain BH258^T were found to be strictly aerobic, motile, endospore-forming rods which could grow at 15-45 °C (optimum, 35 °C), at pH 5.5-9.0 (pH 7.0) and at salinities of 0.5-20 % (w/v) NaCl (7-10%). Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain BH258^T belongs to the genus Aquibacillus, showing highest sequence similarity to Aquibacillus koreensis BH30097^T (96.1 %), Aquibacillus albus YIM 93624^T (95.9 %), Aquibacillus halophilus B6B^T (95.6 %) and Aquibacillus salifodinae WSY08-1^T (95.1 %). The predominant isoprenoid quinone was identified as menaquinone-7, and the cell-wall peptidoglycan was found to contain meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The major fatty acids were identified as anteiso-C_15 : 0, iso-C_16 : 0, anteiso-C_17 : 0 and iso-C_15 : 0. The major polar lipids were identified as phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol and three unidentified phospholipids. The DNA G+C content of this novel isolate was determined to be 37.35 mol%. On the basis of the results of phylogenetic, phenotypic and chemotaxonomic analyses in this study, strain BH258^T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Aquibacillus, for which the name Aquibacillus sediminis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is BH258^T (=KACC 18680^T=NBRC 111875^T).