Virgibacillus
halotolerans sp. nov., isolated from a dairy product
A Gram-stain-positive, strictly aerobic, rod-shaped and weakly motile bacterium, designated WS 4627T, was isolated from a dairy product sample collected in southern Germany. Spherical to slightly ellipsoidal endospores were formed centrally or subterminally in sometimes slightly swollen sporangia. The isolate was able to grow at 8–35 °C, at pH 6.5–8.5 and with 0.5–16.5 % (w/v) NaCl. The diamino acid of the cell wall was meso-diaminopimelic acid (peptidoglycan type A1γ) and the genomic DNA G+C content was 39.1 mol%. The major menaquinone was MK-7, the cellular fatty acid profile contained major amounts of anteiso-C15 : 0 and anteiso-C17 : 0 and the major polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol. Strain WS 4627T was most closely related to ‘ Virgibacillus natachei’ FarD (96.5 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity) and ‘ Virgibacillus zhanjiangensis’ JSM 079157 (96.0 %). Based on the data presented, strain WS 4627T represents a novel species of the genus Virgibacillus , for which the name Virgibacillus halotolerans sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is WS 4627T ( = DSM 25060T = LMG 26644T).