Halorubrum trueperi sp. nov., a halophilic archaeon isolated from a salt mine.

ABSTRACT

A novel, extremely halophilic archaeon, strain Y73T, was isolated from a salt mine in Yunnan, China. Colonies formed on solid medium were circular (2-3 mm in diameter), smooth, orange, glistening and convex (~1 mm in elevation). Cells were Gram-stain-negative, non-motile and pleomorphic. Mg2+ was required for growth (optimum at 0.05 M). Optimal growth was observed at 20 % (w/v) NaCl, 42-45 °C and pH 7.5-8.5 under aerobic conditions. 16S rRNA gene sequence comparison showed that strain Y73T was closely related to Halorubrum halophilum B8T (similarity 98.1 %), Halorubrum lipolyticum 9-3T (97.9 %) and Halorubrum saccharovorum JCM 8865T (97.6 %). Levels of rpoB' gene sequence similarity between strain Y73T and H. halophilum B8T, H. lipolyticum 9-3T and H. saccharovorum JCM 8865T were 93.6, 93.8 and 94.7 %, respectively. DNA-DNA relatedness between strain Y73T and H. halophilum B8T was 38.7±0.5 %, while that between strain Y73T and H. saccharovorum JCM 8865T was 31.0±0.9 % . The DNA G+C content of strain Y73T was 61.9 mol%. The major polar lipids of strain Y73T were phosphatidic acid, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol phosphate methyl ester and phosphatidylglycerol sulfate as phospholipids, and sulfated diglycosyl diether-1 as glycolipid. The phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic properties suggest that strain Y73T represents a novel species, for which the name Halorubrum trueperi sp. nov is proposed. The type strain is Y73T (=CGMCC 1.15503T=JCM 31271T).