<Emphasis Type="Italic">Oceanobacillus manasiensis</Emphasis> sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from the salt lakes of Xinjiang,China

Three Gram reaction positive, rod-shaped, moderately motile halophilic bacterial strains, designated YD3-56^T, YD16, and YH29, were isolated from the sediments of Manasi and Aiding salt lakes in the Xinjiang region of China, respectively. The strains grew optimally at 30–37°C, pH 8–11, in the presence of 5–10% (w/v) NaCl. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that the strains were closely related to members of the genus Oceanobacillus, exhibiting 99.1–99.2% similarity to O. kapialis KCTC 13177^T, 99.2–99.3% to O. picturae KCTC 3821^T, and 94.2–96% sequence similarity to other described Oceanobacillus species. SDS-PAGE of whole cell proteins preparations demonstrated that the strains exhibited high similarity to each other, but distinguished from O. kapialis KCTC 13177^T and O. picturae KCTC 3821^T (75%). DNA-DNA hybridization revealed that the similarity between the representative strain YD3-56^T and O. kapialis KCTC 13177^T was 35.3%, and the similarity between YD3-56^T and O. picturae KCTC 3821^T was 22.3%. Chemotaxonomic analysis of the strains showed menaquinone-7 was the predominant respiratory quinine. Major cellular fatty acids were anteiso-C_15:0 and anteiso-C_17:0. The polar lipid pattern for strain YD3-56^T predominantly contained phosphatidylcholine, and trace to moderate amounts of phosphatidyl ethanolamine and hydroxy-phosphatidyl ethanolamine. The diamino acid in murein was meso-diaminopimelic acid. The DNA G+C content of the strains was 39.7–40.1 mol%. On the basis of these results, the three strains should be classified as a novel species of the genus Oceanobacillus, for which the name Oceanobacillus manasiensis sp. nov. has been proposed, with the type strain as YD3-56^T (=CGMCC 1.9105^T =NBRC 105903^T).