A novel halophilic actinomycete, designated strain J11Y309T, was isolated from a soil sample collected from a dried salt lake in China. This isolate grew optimally at 28‒37 °C, with 3‒5 % (w/v) NaCl and at pH 7.0‒7.5. It contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid and glucose, ribose and xylose were present in the whole-cell hydrolysates. MK-10(H4) was detected as the predominant menaquinone. The major fatty acids were anteiso-C17 : 0, iso-C16 : 0, iso-C17 : 0 and iso-C15 : 0. Polar lipids were phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylinositol mannoside, phosphoglycolipids, glycolipids, an unidentified phospholipid and additional unidentified lipids. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 63.0 mol%. The novel strain shared highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity with Salininema proteolyticum Miq-4T (95.80 %), Paraglycomyces xinjiangensis TRM 49201T (95.77 %) and Haloglycomyces albus YIM 92370T (94.84 %). Phylogenetic trees showed that it could not be clearly assigned to any known genus within the family Glycomycetaceae and formed a distinct phylogenetic line in the clade comprising members of the genera Salininema, Paraglycomyces and Haloglycomyces. Based on data from the present polyphasic taxonomic study, strain J11Y309T represents a novel species of a new genus in the family Glycomycetaceae, for which the name Salilacibacter albus gen. nov., sp. nov. is proposed with Salilacibacter albus sp. nov. as the type species. The type strain of Salilacibacter albus is J11Y309T (=DSM 46875T=CGMCC 4.7242T=LMG 29297T). Reclassification of Paraglycomyces xinjiangensis Luo et al. 2015 as a later heterotypic synonym of Salininema roteolyticum Nikou et al. 2015 is also discussed in this study.
Keywords: Glycomycetaceae; Paraglycomyces xinjiangensis; Salilacibacter albus; Salininema proteolyticum; halophilic actinobacterium; salt lake.