Halomonas azerica sp. nov., Isolated from Urmia Lake in Iran

A novel moderately halophilic, Gram-staining negative and facultative aerobic bacterium, designated as TBZ9^T, was isolated from water of Urmia Lake in Azerbaijan region of Iran. The cells were found to be rod-shaped and motile, growing in the form of creamy, convex and shiny colonies. The strain could grow in the presence of NaCl at concentrations 1-17% (w/v) (optimum, 3%), temperatures 10-40 °C (optimum, 30 °C) and pH 6.0-11.0 (optimum, pH 7.0) on marine agar. Strain TBZ9^T 16S rRNA gene sequence was related to the genus Halomonas showing highest similarities to Halomonas arcis AJ282^T (98.4%), Halomonas songnenensis NEAU-ST10-39^T (98.0%) and Halomonas lutescens Q1U^T (97.8%). In the phylogenetic trees, strain TBZ9^T formed a distinct branch closely related to a subclade inside the Halomonas genus. Digital DNA-DNA hybridization (dDDH) and average nucleotide identity (ANI) values between strain TBZ9^T and H. arcis AJ282^T (20.0%, 74.0%) and H. songnenensis NEAU-ST10-39^T (19.8%, 75.2%) indicated that TBZ9^T represents a distinct species. Evaluation of fatty acid contents determined C_10:0, C_16:0, C_12:0 3-OH, summed feature 3 (C_16:1 ω7c and/or C_16:1 ω6c) and summed feature 8 (C_18:1 ω7c and/or C_18:1 ω6c) as major cellular fatty acids. The major quinone of strain TBZ9^T was Q-9. Polar lipid patterns consisted of phosphatidylglycerol (PG), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), two unidentified phospholipids (PL) and four unidentified polar lipids (L). The average DNA G + C content of strain TBZ9^T is 55.4 mol%. Results from phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and molecular analysis suggest that the strain TBZ9^T represents a novel species within the genus Halomonas for which the name Halomonas azerica sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is TBZ9^T (= KACC 21783^T = LMG 25775^T).