Halomonas urmiana sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from Urmia Lake in Iran
Shehzad Abid Khan, Sepideh Zununi Vahed, Haleh Forouhandeh, Vahideh Tarhriz, Nader Chaparzadeh, Mohammad Amin Hejazi, Che Ok Jeon, Mohammad Saeid Hejazi
Abstract
In the course of screening halophilic bacteria in Urmia Lake in Iran, which is being threatened by dryness, a novel Gram-negative, moderately halophilic, heterotrophic and short rod-shaped bacteria was isolated and characterized. The bacterium was isolated from a water specimen and designated as TBZ3 T . Colonies were found to be creamy yellow, with catalase- and oxidase-positive activities. The growth of strain TBZ3 T was observed to be at 10–45 °C (optimum, 30 °C), at pH 6.0–9.0 (optimum, pH 7.0) and in the presence of 0.5–20 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 7.5 %). Strain TBZ3 T contained C 16 : 0 , cyclo-C 19 : 0 ω8 c , summed feature 3 (comprising C 16 : 1 ω 7 c and/or C 16 : 1 ω 6 c ) and summed feature 8 (comprising C 18 : 1 ω 7 c and/or C 18 : 1 ω 6 c ) as major fatty acids and ubiquinone-9 as the only respiratory isoprenoid quinone. Diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, glycolipid, unidentified phospholipid and unidentified polar lipids were detected as the major polar lipids. Strain TBZ3 T was found to be most closely related to Halomonas saccharevitans AJ275 T , Halomonas denitrificans M29 T and Halomonas sediminicola CPS11 T with the 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities of 98.93, 98.15 and 97.60 % respectively and in phylogenetic analysis strain TBZ3 T grouped with Halomonas saccharevitans AJ275 T contained within a large cluster within the genus Halomonas . Based on phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and molecular properties, strain TBZ3 T represents a novel species of the Halomonas genus, for which the name Halomonas urmiana sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is TBZ3 T (=DSM 22871 T =LMG 25416 T ).