ORIGINAL PAPER Marinobacter persicus sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium from a saline lake in Iran Maryam Bagheri • Mohammad Ali Amoozegar • Maryam Didari • Ali Makhdoumi-Kakhki • Peter Schumann • Cathrin Spro ¨er • Cristina Sa ´nchez-Porro • Antonio Ventosa Received: 14 February 2013 / Accepted: 9 April 2013 / Published online: 17 April 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract A Gram-negative, non-endospore-forming, rod shaped, strictly aerobic, moderately halophilic bacterium, designated strain M9B T , was isolated from the hypersaline lake Aran-Bidgol in Iran. Cells of strain M9B T were found to be motile and produce colonies with an orange-yellow pigment. Growth was determined to occur between 5 and 20 % (w/v) NaCl and the isolate grew optimally at 7.5–10 % (v/w) NaCl. The optimum pH and temperature for growth of the strain were determined to be pH 7.0 and 35 °C, respectively, while it was able to grow over pH and temperature ranges of 6–8 and 25–45 °C, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis based on the comparison of 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain M9B T is a member of the genus Marinobacter. The closest relative to this strain was found to be Marinobacter hydrocarbonoclasticus MBIC 1303 T with a similarity level of 97.7 %. DNA–DNA hybridization between the novel isolate and this phylogenetically related species was 13 ± 2 %. The major cellular fatty acids of the isolate were identified as C 16:0 ,C 19:1 x6c,C 18:1 x9c and C 16:1 x9c. The polar lipid pattern of strain M9B T was determined to consist of phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phos- phatidylserine and three phospholipids. Ubiquinone 9 (Q-9) was the only lipoquinone detected. The G?C content of the genomic DNA of this strain was determined to be 58.6 mol%. Phenotypic characteris- tics, phylogenetic analysis and DNA–DNA related- ness data suggest that this strain represents a novel species of the genus Marinobacter, for which the name Marinobacter persicus sp. nov. is proposed. The type Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10482-013-9923-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. M. Bagheri Á M. A. Amoozegar (&) Á M. Didari Extremophiles Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology and Center of Excellence in Phylogeny of Living Organisms, College of Science, University of Tehran, P. O. Box 14155-6455, Tehran, Iran e-mail: amoozegar@ut.ac.ir M. Bagheri Á M. A. Amoozegar Microorganisms Bank, Iranian Biological Resource Centre (IBRC), ACECR, Tehran, Iran A. Makhdoumi-Kakhki Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran P. Schumann Á C. Spro ¨er DSMZ-German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures, Inhoffenstraße 7B, 38124 Braunschweig, Germany C. Sa ´nchez-Porro Á A. Ventosa Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sevilla, 41012 Sevilla, Spain 123 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (2013) 104:47–54 DOI 10.1007/s10482-013-9923-3