Gimesia chilikensis sp. nov., a haloalkali-tolerant planctomycete isolated from Chilika lagoon and emended description of the genus Gimesia.

A Gram-stain-negative, aerobic, non-motile, salt- and alkali-tolerant, pear to oval shaped, rosette-forming, white coloured, bacterium, designated as strain JC646T, was isolated from a sediment sample collected from Chilika lagoon, India. Strain JC646T reproduced through budding, grew well at up to pH 9.0 and tolerated up to 7 % NaCl. Strain JC 646T utilized α-d-glucose, fumarate, lactose, sucrose, fructose, d-galactose, mannose, maltose and d-xylose as carbon sources. Peptone, l-isoleucine, l-serine, l-lysine, l-glutamic acid, l-aspartic acid, dl-threonine and l-glycine were used by the strain as nitrogen sources for growth. The respiratory quinone was MK6. Major fatty acids were C16 : 1 ω7c/C16 : 1 ω6c and C16 : 0. The polar lipids of strain JC646T comprised phosphatidyl-dimethylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine, diphosphatidylglycerol, an unidentified amino lipid and two unidentified lipids. Strain JC646T had highest (97.3 %) 16S rRNA gene sequence identity to the only species of the genus Gimesia, Gimesia maris DSM 8797T. The genome of strain JC646T was 7.64 Mbp with a DNA G+C content of 53.2 mol%. For the resolution of the phylogenetic congruence of the novel strain, the phylogeny was also reconstructed with the sequences of 92 housekeeping genes. Based on phylogenetic analyses, digital DNA-DNA hybridization (19.0 %), genome average nucleotide identity (74.5 %) and average amino acid identity/percentageof conserved proteins (77 %) results, chemotaxonomic characteristics, and differential physiological properties, strain JC646T is recognized as representing a new species of the genus Gimesia, for which we propose the name Gimesia chilikensis sp. nov. The type strain is JC646T (=KCTC 72175T=NBRC 113881T).