Bacillus shivajii sp. nov., isolated from a water sample of Sambhar salt lake, India.

A novel Gram-stain-positive, rod-shaped, motile, spore-forming, strictly aerobic, alkali- and halo- tolerant bacterium, designated strain AK72T, was isolated from a water sample collected from Sambhar salt lake, Rajasthan, India. The colony appears circular, shiny, smooth, translucent or slightly pale in colour and convex with an entire margin after 48 h incubation at 37 °C with pH 9. Growth of the bacterium occurred at 10-42 °C (optimum, 25-37 °C), at salinities of 0.5-10 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 3-5 % NaCl) and pH of 6-10 (optimum pH 9). Strain AK72T was positive for oxidase, catalase, nitrate reductase, phenylalanine deaminase, ornithine decarboxylase, aesculinase, lipase and urease activities. The predominant fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C15 : 0 and iso-C16 : 0 and the cell-wall peptidoglycan contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The major polar lipids of the strain were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, an unidentified aminophospholipid, three unidentified phospholipids and three unidentified lipids. The genomic DNA G+C content of the strain AK72T was 36.8 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence indicated that strain AK72T was closely related to Bacillus cellulosilyticus (96.5 %) and Bacillus vedderi (96.3 %), but the novel strain AK72T formed a separate clade with Bacillus aurantiacus whereas B. cellulosilyticus and B. vedderi were clustered in a separate clade. The above data in combination with the phenotypic characteristics and phylogenetic data inferred that strain AK72T represents a novel species of the genus Bacillus, for which the name Bacillusshivajii sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is AK72T (=MTCC 12636T=KCTC 33981T=JCM 32183T).