Modicisalibacter tunisiensis gen. nov., sp. nov., an aerobic, moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from an oilfield-water injection sample, and emended description of the family Halomonadaceae Franzmann et al. 1989 emend Dobson and Franzmann 1996 emend. Ntougias et al. 2007.

An aerobic, moderately halophilic, Gram-negative, motile, non-sporulating bacterium, strain LIT2(T), was isolated from an oilfield-water injection after enrichment on crude oil. Strain LIT2(T) grew between 15 and 45 degrees C and optimally at 37 degrees C. It grew in the presence of 1-25 % (w/v) NaCl, with an optimum at 10 % (w/v) NaCl. Predominant fatty acids were C(16 : 0) (26.9 %), C(18 : 1)omega7c (22.6 %), C(16 : 1)omega7c (20.4 %) C(19 : 0) cyclo omega8c (10.9 %) and C(17 : 0) (8 %). Interestingly, the relative percentages of these last two fatty acids were intermediate compared with most species among the family Halomonadaceae for which fatty acid composition has been determined. The DNA G+C content was 53.7 mol%, which is very low among the family Halomonadaceae. Strain LIT2(T) exhibited 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity values of 94.06-95.15 % to members of the genus Chromohalobacter, 94.21-94.65 % to members of the genus Halomonas and 93.57 % with the single species representative of the genus Cobetia. Based on the phylogenetic and phenotypic evidence presented in this paper, we propose the name Modicisalibacter tunisiensis gen. nov., sp. nov. to accommodate strain LIT2(T). The type strain of Modicisalibacter tunisiensis is LIT2(T) (=CCUG 52917(T) =CIP 109206(T)). A reassignment of the descriptive 16S rRNA signature characteristics of the family Halomonadaceae permitted placement of the new genus Modicisalibacter into the family.