Bacillus hemicentroti sp. nov., a moderate halophile isolated from a sea urchin

A novel Gram-staining-positive, moderately halophilic, facultatively alkaliphilic, non-motile, catalase-positive, oxidase-negative, endospore-forming, facultatively anaerobic rod, designated JSM 076093T, was isolated from a sea urchin (Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus) collected from Naozhou Island in the South China Sea. Growth occurred with 0.5–25 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 5–8 %) and at pH 6.0–10.5 (optimum pH 8.0) and 5–40 °C (optimum 30–35 °C). meso-Diaminopimelic acid was present in the cell-wall peptidoglycan. The predominant respiratory quinone was menaquinone 7 and the polar lipids consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and one unidentified phospholipid. The major cellular fatty acids (>10 % of the total) were anteiso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C17 : 0, iso-C16 : 0 and iso-C14 : 0. The genomic DNA G+C content was 38.8 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain JSM 076093T belonged to the genus Bacillus and was related most closely to Bacillus hwajinpoensis SW-72T (99.1 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity) and Bacillus algicola KMM 3737T (97.3 %). The combination of results from the phylogenetic analysis, DNA–DNA hybridization and phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characterization supported the conclusion that strain JSM 076093T represents a novel species of the genus Bacillus, for which the name Bacillus hemicentroti sp. nov. is proposed, with JSM 076093T ( = DSM 23007T = KCTC 13710T) as the type strain.