Bacillus urumqiensis sp. nov., a moderately haloalkaliphilic bacterium isolated from a salt lake

A Gram-stain-positive, rod-shaped, aerobic and moderately haloalkaliphilic bacterium, designated BZ-SZ-XJ18T, was isolated from the mixed water and sediment of a saline-alkaline lake located in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain BZ-SZ-XJ18T was a member of the genus Bacillus. The closest phylogenetic relatives were Bacillus saliphilus 6AGT (96.7 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity), 'Bacillusdaqingensis' X10-1 (96.6 %), Bacillus luteus JC167T (96.5 %), Bacillus daliensis DLS13T (96.2 %), Bacillus chagannorensis CG-15T (95.2 %) and Bacillus polygoni YN-1T (95.0 %). DNA-DNA relatedness between strain BZ-SZ-XJ18T and the reference type strains of the related species of the genus Bacillus was lower than 27 %. The isolate formed yellow pigment and grew in the presence of 0.22-4.32 M Na+ (equivalent to 1.3-25.3 %, w/v, NaCl) (optimum 1.08 M Na+, equivalent to 6.3 %, w/v, NaCl), at pH 6.5-10.0 (optimum pH 8.5-9.5) and at 8-41 ºC (optimum 37 ºC). The major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C15:0 (43.0 %), C16:0 (18.1 %), iso-C15:0 (11.3 %), anteiso-C17:0 (8.0 %) and iso-C16:0 (7.0 %). The major polar lipids consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol. The main respiratory quinone was menaquinone-7 (MK-7), and the peptidoglycan type of the cell wall was A1γ based on meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The genomic DNA G+C content was 42.3 mol% (HPLC) or 41.4 mol% (Tm). On the basis of phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic features, strain BZ-SZ-XJ18T is proposed to represent a novel species, Bacillusurumqiensis within the genus Bacillus. The type strain is BZ-SZ-XJ18T (=DSM 29145T=JCM 30195T).