Lentibacillus salicampi gen. nov., sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from a salt field in Korea.

A Gram-variable, aerobic, endospore-forming, rod-shaped bacterial strain, SF-20(T), which was isolated from a salt field in Korea, was subjected to a polyphasic taxonomic study. Cells of this organism were motile by means of single flagella. Strain SF-20(T) grew optimally in the presence of 4-8% NaCl. The cell wall peptidoglycan contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The predominant menaquinone is MK-7. Strain SF-20(T) has a cellular fatty acid profile containing major amounts of branched fatty acids. The major fatty acids are anteiso-C15:0 and iso-C16:0. The cellular phospholipids are phosphatidylglycerol and diphosphatidylglycerol. The G+C content of the DNA is 44 mol%. Strain SF-20(T) is phylogenetically closely related to the genus Bacillus and some related genera and, particularly, formed a coherent cluster with the genera Salibacillus and Virgibacillus. The clustering fidelity between strain SF-20(T) and the cluster comprising these two genera was supported by bootstrap analysis at a confidence level of 67.2%. Strain SF-20(T) exhibited levels of 16S rDNA similarity of 93.0-94.7% to the genus Salibacillus and 94.0-94.1% to the genus Virgibacillus. On the basis of phenotypic and phylogenetic data, strain SF-20(T) should be classified in a novel genus and species, for which the name Lentibacillus salicampi gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is strain SF-20(T) (= KCCM 41560(T) = JCM 11462(T)).