RESUMO
An extremely halophilic archaeal strain SP28T was isolated from the Gomso solar saltern, Republic of Korea. Cells of the new strain SP28T were pleomorphic and Gram stain negative, and produced red-pigmented colonies. These grew in medium with 2.5-4.5 M NaCl (optimum 3.1 M) and 0.05-0.5 M MgCl2 (optimum 0.1 M), at 25-50 °C (optimum 37 °C) and at a pH of 6.5-8.5 (optimum pH 8.0). Mg2+ was required for growth. A concentration of at least 2 M NaCl was required to prevent cell lysis. Polar lipids included phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol phosphate methyl ester, phosphatidylglycerol sulfate and one glycolipid chromatographically identical to sulfated mannosyl glucosyl diether. 16S rRNA and rpoB' gene sequence analyses showed that strain SP28T is closely related to Haloplanus ruber R35T (97.3 and 94.1â%, 16S rRNA and rpoB' gene sequence similarity, respectively), Haloplanus litoreus GX21T (97.0 and 92.1â%), Haloplanus salinus YGH66T (96.0 and 91.9â%), Haloplanus vescus RO5-8T (95.9 and 90.9â%), Haloplanus aerogenes TBN37T (95.6 and 90.3â%) and Haloplanus natans RE-101T (95.3 and 89.8â%). The DNA G+C content of the novel strain SP28T was 66.2 mol%, which is slightly higher than that of Hpn.litoreus GX21T (65.8 mol%) and Hpn.ruber R35T (66.0 mol%). DNA-DNA hybridization values betweenHpn.ruber R35T and strain SP28T and between Hpn.litoreus GX21T and strain SP28T were about 24.8 and 20.7â%, respectively. We conclude that strain SP28T represents a novel species of the genus Haloplanus and propose the name Haloplanus salinarum sp. nov. The type strain is SP28T (=JCM 31424T=KCCM 43210T).