Halorubrum glutamatedens sp. nov., a Halophilic Archaeon Isolated from a Rock Salt

Abstract

An extremely halophilic archaeon, strain ZY8^T, was isolated from a rock salt of Yunnan salt mine. It was able to grow at 12-30% (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 15-20%), pH 7.0-9.0 (optimum, pH 8.5), and 20-45 °C (optimum, 42 °C). Sequence similarity search of its 16S rRNA gene showed that strain ZY8^T belonged to the genus Halorubrum, and it is closely related to species of H. aethiopicum SAH-A6^T (98.6%), H. aquaticum EN-2^T (98.6%), and H. halodurans Cb34^T (98.5%), respectively. Strain ZY8^T contained phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol phosphate methyl ester and phosphatidylglycerol sulfate as its major phospholipids, and a sulfated diglycosyl diether as its major glycolipid. The DNA G+C content was 66.7 mol%. DNA-DNA relatedness between strains ZY8^T and closely related species were far below 70%. Based on the phenotypic and phylogenetic analyses, it is proposed that strain ZY8^T represents a novel species of the genus Halorubrum, for which the name Halorubrum glutamatedens sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is ZY8^T (=CGMCC 1.16026^T=NBRC 112866^T).