Salinivibrio sharmensis sp. nov., a novel haloalkaliphilic bacterium from a saline lake in Ras Mohammed Park (Egypt)

A novel haloalkaliphilic, facultative anaerobic and Gram-negative Salinivibrio-like microorganism (designated strain BAG(T)) was recovered from a saline lake in Ras Mohammed Park (Egypt). Cells were motile, curved rods, not spore-forming and occurred singly. Strain BAG(T) grew optimally at 35°C (temperature growth range 25-40°C) with 10.0% (w/v) NaCl [NaCl growth range 6.0-16.0% (w/v)] and at pH 9.0 (pH growth range 6.0-10.0). Strain BAG(T) had phosphatidylethanolamine (PEA) and phosphatidylglycerol (PG) as the main polar lipids, C16:0 (54.0%) and C16:1 (26.0%) as the predominant cellular fatty acids and Q-8 as the major respiratory quinone. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain BAG(T) was a member of Salinivibrio genus, with the highest sequence similarities of 99.1, 98.4 and 98.1% to Salinivibrio siamensis JCM 14472(T), Salinivibrio proteolyticus DSM 19052(T) and Salinivibrio costicola subsp. alcaliphilus DSM 16359(T), respectively. DNA-DNA hybridization values of strain BAG(T) with members of Salinivibrio genus were lower than 55.0%. DNA G + C content was 51.0 mol%. On the basis of the polyphasic taxonomic results revealed in this study, strain BAG(T) should be classified as a novel species of Salinivibrio genus, for which the name Salinivibrio sharmensis sp. nov. is proposed, with the type strain BAG(T) (=ATCC BAA-1319(T) = DSM 18182(T)).