Indibacter alkaliphilus gen. nov., sp. nov., an alkaliphilic bacterium isolated from a haloalkaline lake

Abstract

A novel Gram-stain-negative, rod-shaped, non-motile bacterium, strain LW1 T , was isolated from a water sample collected at a depth of 3.5 m from Lonar Lake, Buldhana district, Maharashtra, India. The cell suspension was reddish-orange due to the presence of carotenoids. Strain LW1 T was positive for catalase, oxidase, ornithine decarboxylase and lysine decarboxylase and negative for gelatinase, urease and lipase. Fatty acids were dominated by branched-chain fatty acids (>76 %), with a high abundance of iso-C 15 : 0 (48 %), anteiso-C 15 : 0 (7 %) and iso-C 17 : 0 3-OH (11 %). Strain LW1 T contained MK-4 and MK-7 as the major respiratory quinones and phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine as the major phospholipids. A blast sequence similarity search based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that members of the genera Belliella and Aquiflexum were the nearest phylogenetic neighbours with similarities of 91.8–92.3 %. Phylogenetic analyses indicated that strain LW1 T formed a deep-rooted lineage distinct from the clades represented by the genera Belliella , Aquiflexum , Cyclobacterium , Echinicola and Algoriphagus . Based on the above-mentioned phenotypic and phylogenetic characteristics, it is proposed that strain LW1 T represents a novel species in a new genus, Indibacter alkaliphilus gen. nov., sp. nov. (type strain LW1 T =KCTC 22604 T =CCUG 57479 T ). The genomic DNA G+C content of strain LW1 T is 42.7±1 mol%.