Marinococcus tarijensis sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from a salt mine

Abstract

A Gram-stain-positive, coccoid-shaped, halophilic bacterium, strain SR-1T, was isolated from a salt crystal obtained from a mine located in Tarija, Bolivia. The strain was investigated using a polyphasic approach. The optimum conditions for growth of strain SR-1T were reached at 5 % (w/v) NaCl, pH 7.6 and 37–40 °C. The peptidoglycan contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The isoprenoid quinone was MK-7. The major cellular fatty acids of strain SR-1T were anteiso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C17 : 0 and iso-C16 : 0. The DNA G+C content of strain SR-1T was 48.6 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed a close relationship between strain SR-1T and Marinococcus halophilus JCM 2479T (99.7 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity), Marinococcus halotolerans KCTC 19045T (99.4 %) and Marinococcus luteus KCTC 13214T (99.8 %). However, strain SR-1T also showed low levels of DNA–DNA relatedness with these reference strains (47, 61 and 58 %, respectively). On the basis of phenotypic differences and DNA–DNA hybridization results, strain SR-1T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Marinococcus , for which the name Marinococcus tarijensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is SR-1T ( = LMG 26930T = CECT 8130T).