sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from Urmia Lake in Iran.

In the course of screening halophilic bacteria in Urmia Lake in Iran, which is being threatened by dryness, a novel Gram-negative, moderately halophilic, heterotrophic and short rod-shaped bacteria was isolated and characterized. The bacterium was isolated from a water specimen and designated as TBZ3. Colonies were found to be creamy yellow, with catalase- and oxidase-positive activities. The growth of strain TBZ3 was observed to be at 10-45 °C (optimum, 30 °C), at pH 6.0-9.0 (optimum, pH 7.0) and in the presence of 0.5-20 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 7.5 %). Strain TBZ3 contained C, cyclo-C ω8, summed feature 3 (comprising C 7 and/or C 6) and summed feature 8 (comprising C 7 and/or C 6) as major fatty acids and ubiquinone-9 as the only respiratory isoprenoid quinone. Diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, glycolipid, unidentified phospholipid and unidentified polar lipids were detected as the major polar lipids. Strain TBZ3 was found to be most closely related to AJ275 M29 and CPS11 with the 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities of 98.93, 98.15 and 97.60 % respectively and in phylogenetic analysis strain TBZ3 grouped with AJ275 contained within a large cluster within the genus . Based on phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and molecular properties, strain TBZ3 represents a novel species of the genus, for which the name sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is TBZ3 (=DSM 22871=LMG 25416).