Halorubrum alkaliphilum sp. nov., a novel haloalkaliphile isolated from a soda lake in Xinjiang, China.

A novel haloalkaliphilic archaeon, strain DZ-1T, was isolated from a soda lake in Xinjiang, China. The taxonomy of strain DZ-1T was studied by polyphasic methods. According to 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, strain DZ-1T was phylogenetically related to Halorubrum tibetense (97.5 %), Halorubrum vacuolatum (95.7 %) and Halorubrum saccharovorum (95.9 %). Strain DZ-1T was able to grow at 20-44 degrees C and was also physiologically different from the above-mentioned species with respect to assimilation of sugars and utilization of organic acids. The DNA G+C content of strain DZ-1T was 62.1 mol% (Tm). The DNA-DNA relatedness of strain DZ-1T to H. tibetense and H. vacuolatum was 22 and 13 %, respectively. It was concluded that strain DZ-1T represents a novel species of the genus Halorubrum, for which the name Halorubrum alkaliphilum (type strain, DZ-1T=AS 1.3528T=JCM 12358T) is proposed.