Downloaded from www.microbiologyresearch.org by IP: 54.70.40.11 On: Sat, 03 Aug 2019 08:28:48 Soortia roseihalophila gen. nov., sp. nov., a new taxon in the order Balneolales isolated from a travertine spring, and description of Soortiaceae fam. nov. Mohammad Ali Amoozegar, 1, * Javad Khansha, 2 Maliheh Mehrshad, 1,2 Seyed Abolhassan Shahzadeh Fazeli, 2,3 Mohaddaseh Ramezani, 2 Rafael R. de la Haba, 4 Cristina S anchez-Porro 4 and Antonio Ventosa 4 Abstract A novel Gram-stain-negative, slightly halophilic, motile, curved rod with a horseshoe shape, designated strain Bsw-2b T , was isolated from Badab-Soort travertine spring in Iran. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence revealed that strain Bsw-2b T belongs to the order Balneolales, showing 84.6 % sequence similarity to Gracilimonas tropica DSM 19535 T and 84.4 % and 83.9 % sequence similarity to Gracilimonas rosea CL-KR2 T and Balneola vulgaris DSM 17893 T , respectively. In addition, phenotypic and physiological features could clearly differentiate strain Bsw-2b T from species of the most closely related genera, Gracilimonas, Balneola, Aliifodinibius and Fodinibius. The strain was able to grow with 1–3 % (w/v) (optimum at 2 %) NaCl, at temperatures of 28–34  C (optimum at 30  C) and between pH 6.0 and 8.0 (optimum at pH 7.0). The major cellular fatty acids of strain Bsw-2b T were iso-C 15 : 0 , iso-C 13 : 0 and iso-C 14 : 0 . The polar lipid profile of strain Bsw-2b T was composed predominantly of phosphatidylethanolamine, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, an unknown glycolipid and four unknown phospholipids. The DNA G+C content was 40.5 mol%. Based on the evidence from the polyphasic study, strain Bsw-2b T represents a novel species in a novel genus within a new family, for which the name Soortia roseihalophila gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed, within the new family Soortiaceae fam. nov. The type strain is strain Bsw-2b T (=IBRC-M 10915 T =LMG 28547 T ). The order Balneolales belongs to the class Balneolia, phy- lum Rhodothermaeota and, at the time of writing, the order includes four genera: Aliifodinibius, Balneola, Fodini- bius and Gracilimonas, which all belong to the family Bal- neolaceae [1]. So far, all representatives of the genera Aliifodinibius and Fodinibius have been isolated from hypersaline environments and are considered to be moder- ately halophilic bacteria [2–4]; however, members of gen- era Balneola and Gracilimonas mostly belong to marine environments [5, 6, 7]. The order Balneolales accommo- dates Gram-staining-negative, non-endospore-forming, rod- or curved-rod-shaped bacteria that are pigmented, chemoheterotrophic, catalase-positive, aerobic, non-motile or motile by flagella and which have DNA G+C contents between 39 and 49 mol% [1]. Badab-Soort spring is one of the most beautiful travertine springs in the world and is located at 36  21¢ 30.5† N 53  51¢ 38.0† E in the north of Iran and at an elevation of 1840 m. This spring has iron minerals, which cause red, pink, white and grey colours in the spring’s structures that can be radial or laminated (Fig. S1, available in the online Supplementary Material). This spring has some springheads with different physical and chemical features that are very close together; springheads with different water sources and originsof the underground and upper layers have unique features. Geo- logical maps of this area report some faults as in other tra- vertines [8], which allow discharge of the water through these faults. Precipitated carbonate deposits are observed. During a study of the diversity of prokaryotic micro-organ- isms in Badab-Soort spring, a collection of bacterial strains was isolated. One of them was a slightly halophilic bacte- rium which was believed to represent a novel bacterial taxon. The aim of the present work was to determine the exact taxonomic position of this strain by using a polyphasic taxonomic characterization that combines phenotypic, che- motaxonomic, phylogenetic and genotypic analyses. Author affiliations: 1 Extremophiles Laboratory, Department of Microbiology, Faculty of Biology and Center of Excellence in Phylogeny of Living Organisms, College of Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran; 2 Microorganisms Bank, Iranian Biological Resource Centre (IBRC), ACECR Tehran, Iran; 3 Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Faculty of Basic Sciences and Advanced Technologies in Biology, University of Science and Culture, Tehran, Iran; 4 Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sevilla, 41012 Sevilla, Spain. *Correspondence: Mohammad Ali Amoozegar, amoozegar@ut.ac.ir or amoozegar@ibrc.ir Keywords: Soortia roseihalophila; Balneolales; travertine spring; halophilic bacteria. The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain Bsw-2b T is KU695464. One supplementary figure is available with the online Supplementary Material. NOTE Amoozegar et al., Int J Syst Evol Microbiol 2017;67:113–120 DOI 10.1099/ijsem.0.001583 001583 ã 2017 IUMS 113