Cecembia lonarensis gen. nov., sp. nov., a haloalkalitolerant bacterium of the family Cyclobacteriaceae , isolated from a haloalkaline lake and emended descriptions of the genera Indibacter , Nitritalea and Belliella

Abstract

A novel Gram-staining-negative, rod-shaped, non-motile bacterium, designated strain LW9T, was isolated from a water sample collected from Lonar Lake of Buldhana district, Maharashtra, India. Colonies and broth cultures were reddish orange due to the presence of carotenoid pigments. Strain LW9T was positive for catalase, ornithine decarboxylase and lysine decarboxylase activities and negative for gelatinase, oxidase, urease and lipase activities. The predominant fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0 (31.3 %), iso-C16 : 0 (9.3 %), anteiso-C15 : 0 (7.3 %), iso-C16 : 1 H (6.1 %), summed feature 3 (comprising C16 : 1ω7c/C16 : 1ω6c; 5.9 %), iso-C17 : 1ω9c (5.4 %) and iso-C17 : 0 3-OH (5.0 %). Strain LW9T contained MK-7 as the major respiratory quinone. The polar lipids consisted of phosphatidylethanolamine, two unidentified aminolipids and seven unidentified lipids. The DNA G+C content of strain LW9T was 40.5 mol%. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated that the type strains of Indibacter alkaliphilus and Aquiflexum balticum , two members of the family Cyclobacteriaceae (phylum ‘ Bacteroidetes ’) were the most closely related strains with sequence similarities of 93.0 and 94.0 %, respectively. Other members of the family Cyclobacteriaceae showed sequence similarities <93.0 %. Based on these phenotypic characteristics and on phylogenetic inference, strain LW9T is proposed as the representative of novel species in a new genus, Cecembia lonarensis gen. nov., sp. nov. The type strain of the type species, Cecembia lonarensis, is LW9T ( = CCUG 58316T = KCTC 22772T). Emended descriptions of the genera Indibacter , Nitritalea and Belliella are also proposed.