Halomonas salinarum sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from saline soil in Yingkou, China

Strain G5-11^T, a Gram-negative, moderately halotolerant, facultatively aerobic, motile bacterium was isolated from saline soil collected from Yingkou, Liaoning, China. The cells of strain G5-11^T grew in the presence of 3-15% (w/v) NaCl (optimum 5%), at between 4 and 35 °C (optimum 30 °C), and at a pH of 6.0-9.0 (optimum 8.0). The major respiratory quinone was Q-9 and the dominant cellular fatty acids were summed feature 8 (C_18:1ω7c/C_18:1ω6c), C_16:0, and summed feature 3 (C_16:1ω7c/C_16:1ω6c). The major components of the polar lipid profile were phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol and unidentified aminolipid. The G + C content of the strain G5-11^T genome was 61.0 mol%. The isolated strain G5-11^T showed the highest 16S rRNA gene similarity to Halomonas niordiana LMG 31227^T and Halomonas taeanensis DSM 16463^T, both reaching 98.3%, followed by Halomonas pacifica NBRC 102220^T. The results from phenotypic, chemotaxonomic, and phylogenetic analyses showed that strain G5-11^T represented a novel species of the genus Halomonas, for which the name Halomonas salinarum sp. nov. was proposed. The type strain of Halomonas salinarum is G5-11^T (= CGMCC 1.12051^T = LMG 31677^T).