sp. nov., isolated from hypersaline Añana Salt Valley spring water, a continental thalassohaline-type solar saltern.

A novel salt-tolerant alpha-proteobacterium, designated SALINAS58, was isolated from Santa Engracia hypersaline spring water in the Añana Salt Valley, Álava, Spain. The isolate was Gram-negative, aerobic, non-motile, catalase-positive, oxidase-negative, rod-shaped and formed orange colonies on marine agar. Optimal growth was observed at pH 6.0-6.5, at 30 °C and in the presence of 1% (w/v) NaCl. The main cellular fatty acids (>20%) were summed feature 8 (C 7 and/or C 6) and summed feature 3 (C 7 and/or C 6). The major respiratory quinone was ubiquinone Q-10 and the major polar lipids detected were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidilglycerol, four unidentified glycolipids and one unidentified phospholipid. Strain SALINAS58 had the highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to MSW-14 (96.6%), JSSK-8 (96.5%) and SW-109 (96.5%) followed by 26DY36 (96.4%). Results of the phylogenetic analysis, based on 16S rRNA gene sequences, and phylogenetic approaches based on whole genome nucleotide differences, showed that strain SALINAS58 could be distinguished from recognized species of the genus . The genomic DNA G+C content was 61.4 mol%. Digital DNA-DNA hybridization, average nucleotide identity and average aminoacid identity values between the genome of strain SALINAS58 and MSW-14 were 18.4, 73.1 and 68.1%, respectively. Based on data from this polyphasic characterization, strain SALINAS58 (=CECT 30029=LMG 31726) is considered to be classified as representing a novel species in the genus , for which the name sp. nov. is proposed.