1 3 Arch Microbiol DOI 10.1007/s00203-014-1040-9 ORGINAL PAPER Bacillus lonarensis sp. nov., an alkalitolerant bacterium isolated from a soda lake Sultanpuram Vishnuvardhan Reddy · Mothe Thirumala · Mohammed Farooq · Chintalapati Sasikala · Chintalapati Venkata Ramana Received: 23 June 2014 / Revised: 30 August 2014 / Accepted: 25 September 2014 © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014 unknown lipids (L2–4). The predominant isoprenoid qui- none was MK-7. iso-C 15:0 (41.7 %) was the predominant fatty acid, and significant proportions of anteiso-C 15:0 (20.8 %), C 12:0 (5.5 %), anteiso-C 17:0 (4.9 %), iso-C 17:0 (4.5 %) were also detected in the strain 25nlg T . The DNA G+C content of the strain 25nlg T was 40.5 mol%. The results of molecular, physiological and biochemical tests allowed a clear phenotypic differentiation of strain 25nlg T from all other members of the genus Bacillus. Strain 25nlg T represents a novel member of the genus Bacillus, for which the name Bacillus lonarensis sp. nov. is pro- posed. The type strain is 25nlg T (=KCTC 33413 T = LMG 27974 T = CGMCC = 1.12817 T ). Keywords Bacillus lonarensis · Novel species · Bacillus genus · Lonar soda lake Introduction The genus Bacillus first described by Cohn (1872) com- prises rod-shaped, endospore-forming aerobic or faculta- tive anaerobic members (Claus and Berkeley 1986). These bacteria belong to the phylum “Firmicutes”, which are low G+C Gram-positive bacteria. Bacillus members are ubiq- uitous and are found in a variety of environments ranging from desert sands and hot springs to Arctic soils and from freshwater to marine sediments (You et al. 2013). Bacillus strains have a wider biotechnological potentials that could be used in industry, some of these include production of antibiotics, enzymes and other metabolites (Banat et al. 2000; Balcàzar and Rojas-Luna 2007; Sorokulova et al. 2008). Over the years, the taxonomy of the genus Bacillus was subjected to many revisions; mainly, these were based on Abstract A novel Gram-stain-positive, rod-shaped, motile and endospore-forming novel bacterial strain 25nlg T was isolated from Lonar soda lake, in India. Based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, it was identified as a member of Firmicutes, being most closely related to Bacillus patagoniensis PAT 05 T (96.6 %) and other mem- bers in the genus Bacillus (<96.0 %). Strain 25nlg T was catalase and oxidase-positive. The strain grows optimally at a pH of 9.5 with 4–6 % (w/v) NaCl and temperature of 35–37 °C. The cell wall of the strain 25nlg T contains meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic amino acid. Polar lipids include diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidyl- glycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, an unknown phos- pholipid (PL2), an aminophospholipid (APL2) and three The EMBL accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain 25nlg T is HG934297. Communicated by Erko Stackebrandt. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00203-014-1040-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. S. V. Reddy (*) · M. Thirumala · M. Farooq Microbial Ecology Lab, Department of Biochemistry, Mahatma Gandhi University, Anneparthy, Yellareddygudem (PO), Nalgonda 508254, India e-mail: vishnu_micro@yahoo.co.in C. Sasikala Bacterial Discovery Laboratory, Centre for Environment, Institute of Science and Technology, J. N. T. University, Kukatpally, Hyderabad 500085, India C. V. Ramana Department of Plant Sciences, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad, P.O. Central University, Hyderabad 500046, India