Halomonas urmiana sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from Urmia Lake in Iran

In the course of screening halophilic bacteria in Urmia Lake in Iran, which is being threatened by dryness, a novel Gram-negative, moderately halophilic, heterotrophic and short rod-shaped bacteria was isolated and characterized. The bacterium was isolated from a water specimen and designated as TBZ3^T. Colonies were found to be creamy yellow, with catalase- and oxidase-positive activities. The growth of strain TBZ3^T was observed to be at 10-45 °C (optimum, 30 °C), at pH 6.0-9.0 (optimum, pH 7.0) and in the presence of 0.5-20 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 7.5 %). Strain TBZ3^T contained C_16 : 0, cyclo-C_19 : 0  ω8c, summed feature 3 (comprising C_16 : 1  ω7c and/or C_16 : 1  ω6c) and summed feature 8 (comprising C_18 : 1  ω7c and/or C_18 : 1  ω6c) as major fatty acids and ubiquinone-9 as the only respiratory isoprenoid quinone. Diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, glycolipid, unidentified phospholipid and unidentified polar lipids were detected as the major polar lipids. Strain TBZ3^T was found to be most closely related to Halomonas saccharevitans AJ275^T , Halomonas denitrificans M29^T and Halomonas sediminicola CPS11^T with the 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities of 98.93, 98.15 and 97.60 % respectively and in phylogenetic analysis strain TBZ3^T grouped with Halomonas saccharevitans AJ275^T contained within a large cluster within the genus Halomonas. Based on phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and molecular properties, strain TBZ3^T represents a novel species of the Halomonas genus, for which the name Halomonas urmiana sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is TBZ3^T (=DSM 22871^T=LMG 25416^T).