Bacillus salitolerans sp nov., a novel bacterium isolated from a salt mine in Xinjiang province, China

A novel aerobic bacterium, KC1(T), was isolated from a salt mine in Kuche county, Xinjiang province, China. Cells were observed to be Gram-positive, rod-shaped, endospore-forming and motile with flagella. Strain KC1(T) was found to grow at 25-45 A degrees C (optimum 37 A degrees C), pH 6.5-9.0 (optimum 8.0) and NaCl 0-10 % (v/v) (optimum 4 %). The major fatty acids were identified as anteiso-C-15:0 and anteiso-C-17:0. Menaquinone-7 (MK-7) was found to be the predominant isoprenoid quinone. The cell-wall diamino acid was found to be meso-diaminopimelic acid. Polar lipid analysis revealed the presence of phosphatidylglycerol and a glycolipid. The 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain KC1(T) showed low similarity (< 96 %) to other validly named species. The phylogenetic trees showed that strain KC1(T) is closely related to Bacillus azotoformans DSM 1046(T) and Bacillus methanolicus DSM 16454(T). Both these type strains showed 95.4 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to strain KC1(T). The DNA G+C content of strain KC1(T) was determined to be 39.0 mol%. On the basis of its phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genotypic characteristics, strain KC1(T) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Bacillus, for which the name Bacillus salitolerans sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is KC1(T) (=JCM 19760(T) = CGMCC 1.12810(T)).