Downloaded from www.microbiologyresearch.org by IP: 54.70.40.11 On: Mon, 03 Dec 2018 05:18:37 Fodinicurvata halophila sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium from a marine saltern Carmen Infante-Dominguez, 1 Paul A. Lawson, 2 Crystal N. Johnson, 2 Cristina Sa ´ nchez-Porro 1 and Antonio Ventosa 1 Correspondence Antonio Ventosa ventosa@us.es 1 Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sevilla, 41012 Sevilla, Spain 2 Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019, USA A Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped, facultatively anaerobic, moderately halophilic bacterium, designated strain BA45AL T , was isolated from water of a saltern located in Santa Pola, Alicante, Spain. Cells were motile, and catalase- and oxidase-positive. Strain BA45AL T grew at temperatures in the range 14–45 6C (optimally at 37 6C), at pH 5.0–9.0 (optimally at pH 7.5), and in media containing 5–20 % (w/v) salts [optimally in media containing 10 % (w/v) salts]. Phylogenetic analysis based on the comparison of 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain BA45AL T is a member of the genus Fodinicurvata. The closest relatives to the novel strain were Fodinicurvata fenggangensis YIM D812 T and Fodinicurvata sediminis YIM D82 T with sequence similarities of 98.2 % and 97.4 %, respectively. DNA–DNA hybridization between the novel isolate and these phylogenetically related species revealed relatedness values of 30 % and 15 %, respectively, with respect to the aforementioned species. The major cellular fatty acids of strain BA45AL T were C 18 : 1 v7c,C 16 : 0 and iso-C 15 : 0 . The G+C content of the genomic DNA of strain BA45AL T was 58.0 mol%, and the polar lipid pattern consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylmethylethanolamine and a number of unknown phospholipids and lipids. Based on phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic data presented in this study, strain BA45AL T constituted a novel species of the genus Fodinicurvata, for which the name Fodinicurvata halophila sp. nov. is suggested. The type strain is BA45AL T (5CCM 8504 T 5CECT 8472 T 5JCM 19075 T 5LMG 27945 T ). The genus Fodinicurvata belongs to the family Rhodospiril- laceae, within the order Rhodospirillales (Pfennig & Tru ¨per, 1971) of the class Alphaproteobacteria. This genus was originally proposed by Wang et al. (2009) and, at the time of writing, comprises two species with validly published names: Fodinicurvata sediminis (Wang et al., 2009) and Fodinicurvata fenggangensis (Wang et al., 2009). Both species were isolated from a sediment sample collected from a salt mine in Yunnan, south-west China. Species of the genus Fodinicurvata stain Gram-negative, are facultatively anaerobic, non-motile, vibrioid or rod-shaped. Catalase and oxidase are produced and polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) granules are observed. The predominant polar lipids consist of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylmethylethanolamine and phosphatidylcholine; phosphatidylinositol is variable between species. The DNA G+C content ranges from 61.5– 62.3 mol% (Wang et al., 2009). Recent metagenomic studies have provided new insights into the microbial diversity along the salinity gradient of salterns located in Santa Pola and Isla Cristina in Spain (Ghai et al., 2011; Ferna ´ndez et al., 2014a,b; Leo ´n et al., 2014; Ventosa et al., 2014). During the course of a study to search for the most abundant micro-organisms in these salterns, a novel, moderately halophilic, yellow- to cream- pigmented, Gram-stain-negative bacterium, strain BA45AL T , was isolated from a water sample. The pH of the water was 7.4 and the salinity was 12% (w/v) salts. At the time of sampling, the temperature of the water was 28 u C. In this paper, we describe the taxonomic features of this novel bacterium and propose that it represents a novel species of the genus Fodinicurvata. Aliquots of the saltern water sample were diluted with sterile salt solution, and 100 ml was plated on saline media and incubated aerobically at 37 u C. The isolation medium used was prepared with a 15 % (g l 21 ) salts mixture: NaCl, 117; MgCl 2 . 6H 2 O, 19.5; MgSO 4 . 7H 2 O, 30.5; CaCl 2 . 2H 2 O, 0.3; Abbreviation: PHB, polyhydroxybutyrate. The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of train BA45AL T is HG764424. Two supplementary figures and a supplementary table are available with the online Supplementary Material. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (2015), 65, 766–771 DOI 10.1099/ijs.0.000010 766 000010 G 2015 IUMS Printed in Great Britain