Mesohalobacter halotolerans gen. nov., sp. nov., isolated from a marine solar saltern

A Gram-stain-negative, non-motile, fine rod or short filament shaped, jacinth pigmented bacterium, designated strain WDS2C27T, was isolated from a marine solar saltern in Wendeng, Weihai, PR China (37°31′5″ N, 122°1′47″ E). Growth of WDS2C27T occurred at 20–42 °C (optimum 37 °C) and pH 6.5–8.5 (optimal pH 7.0–8.0). Optimal growth occurred in modified marine broth containing 6 % (w/v) NaCl. The major polar lipids in WDS2C27T were phosphatidylethanolamine, two unidentified aminolipids and one unidentified lipid. The major respiratory quinone of WDS2C27T was MK-6. The dominant fatty acids were iso-C15 : 0 and anteiso-C15 : 0. The DNA G+C content was 35.0 mol%. The nucleotide sequence of the 16S rRNA gene indicated that the most closely related strain was Psychroflexus planctonicus X15M-8T (92.0 % over 1452 bp). WDS2C27T showed 60.7 % average amino acid identity, 55.6 % percentage of conserved proteins, 75.0 % average nucleotide identity and 13.1 % digital DNA–DNA hybridization identity with the type species of the genus Psychroflexus , Psychroflexus torquis ATCC 700755T. The phenotypic and genotypic properties and phylogenetic inference indicated that WDS2C27T could be assigned to a novel species within a novel genus, for which the name Mesohalobacter halotolerans gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed. Strain WDS2C27T (=MCCC 1H00133T=KCTC 52044T) is the type strain.