Zhihengliuella salsuginis sp. nov., a moderately halophilic actinobacterium from a subterranean brine.

A novel moderately halophilic, alkaliphilic, non-motile, non-sporulating, catalase-positive, oxidase-negative, aerobic, coccus-shaped, Gram-positive bacterium, designated strain JSM 071043(T), was isolated from a subterranean brine sample collected from a salt mine in Hunan Province, China. Growth occurred with 0.5-20% (w/v) NaCl (optimum 5-10%) at pH 6.5-10.5 (optimum pH 8.5) and at 10-40 degrees C (optimum 25-30 degrees C). Good growth also occurred in the presence of 0.5-20% (w/v) KCl (optimum 5-8%) or 0.5-25% (w/v) MgCl(2).6H(2)O (optimum 5-10%). The peptidoglycan type was A4alpha (L: -Lys-L: -Ala-L: -Glu) and major cell-wall sugars were tyvelose and mannose. The major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C(15:0), iso-C(16:0) and anteiso-C(17:0). Strain JSM 071043(T) contained MK-9 and MK-8 as the predominant menaquinones and diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylinositol as the major polar lipids. The DNA G + C content was 67.8 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain JSM 071043(T) was a member of the suborder Micrococcineae, and was most closely related to Zhihengliuella halotolerans YIM 70185(T) (sequence similarity 98.9%) and Zhihengliuella alba YIM 90734(T) (98.2%), and the three strains formed a distinct branch in the phylogenetic tree. The combination of phylogenetic analysis, DNA-DNA relatedness values, phenotypic characteristics and chemotaxonomic data supports the proposal that strain JSM 071043(T) represents a novel species of the genus Zhihengliuella, for which the name Z. salsuginis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is JSM 071043(T) (= DSM 21149(T) = KCTC 19466(T)).