LAUSR

A Gram-stain-positive, moderately halophilic bacterium, designated strain BH258T, was isolated from solar saltern sediment sampled at Shinan in the Republic of Korea. Cells of strain BH258T were found to be strictly aerobic, motile, endospore-forming rods which could grow at 15-45 °C (optimum, 35 °C), at pH 5.5-9.0 (pH 7.0) and at salinities of 0.5-20 % (w/v) NaCl (7-10%). Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain BH258T belongs to the genus Aquibacillus, showing highest sequence similarity to Aquibacillus koreensis BH30097T (96.1 %), Aquibacillus albus YIM 93624T (95.9 %), Aquibacillus halophilus B6BT (95.6 %) and Aquibacillus salifodinae WSY08-1T (95.1 %). The predominant isoprenoid quinone was identified as menaquinone-7, and the cell-wall peptidoglycan was found to contain meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The major fatty acids were identified as anteiso-C15 : 0, iso-C16 : 0, anteiso-C17 : 0 and iso-C15 : 0. The major polar lipids were identified as phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol and three unidentified phospholipids. The DNA G+C content of this novel isolate was determined to be 37.35 mol%. On the basis of the results of phylogenetic, phenotypic and chemotaxonomic analyses in this study, strain BH258T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Aquibacillus, for which the name Aquibacillus sediminis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is BH258T (=KACC 18680T=NBRC 111875T).