Nitritalea halalkaliphila gen. nov., sp. nov., an alkaliphilic bacterium of the family 'Cyclobacteriaceae', phylum Bacteroidetes.

A novel Gram-negative, rod-shaped, non-motile bacterium, designated strain LW7(T), was isolated from a water sample collected at a depth of 4.5 m from Lonar Lake in Buldhana district, Maharastra, India. The cell suspension was dark-reddish orange due to the presence of carotenoids. The fatty acids were dominated by large amounts of iso-C₁₅:₀ (59.6 %) and iso-C₁₇:₀ 3-OH (8.9 %). Strain LW7(T) contained MK-4 and MK-5 as the major respiratory quinones and phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylethanolamine as the major phospholipids. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated that Belliella baltica, a member of family 'Cyclobacteriaceae' (phylum Bacteroidetes), is the closest related species, with a sequence similarity of 94.0 % to the type strain. Other members of the family 'Cyclobacteriaceae' had sequence similarities of < 93.3 %. Based on the above-mentioned phenotypic and phylogenetic characteristics, strain LW7(T) is proposed as a representative of a new genus and species, Nitritalea halalkaliphila gen. nov., sp. nov. The type strain of Nitritalea halalkaliphila is LW7(T) (=CCUG 57665(T) =JCM 15946(T) =NCCB 100279(T)). The genomic DNA G+C of strain LW7(T) is 49&emsp14;mol%.