Description of Alteribacillus alkaliphilus sp nov., reassignment of Bacillus iranensis (Bagheri et al. 2012) as Alteribacillus iranensis comb. nov and emended description of the genus Alteribacillus

A novel Gram-stain-positive, aerobic, endospore-forming, non-motile, rod-shaped bacterium (strain JC229(T)) was isolated from a water sample collected from waterlogged alkaline soil. Strain JC229(T) was oxidase-and catalase-positive. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain JC229(T) was identified as belonging to the genus Alteribacillus of the phylum Firmicutes and was found to be most closely related to Alteribacillus bidgolensis P4B(T) (97.9% similarity), Bacillus iranensis X5B(T) (97.2 %) and Alteribacillus persepolensis HS136(T) (96.6 %), and more distantly related to other members of the genus Bacillus (<95.2 %). Strain JC229(T) was further identified to be distinctly related to the type strains of A. bidgolensis and B. iranensis (<26% based on DNA-DNA hybridization and Delta T-m of >5 degrees C). Strain JC229(T) grew optimally at pH 8 (range 5-11), at 35-40 degrees C (range 20-50 degrees C) and at a salinity of 3-5% (range 0.5-24 %). The DNA G+C content was 40.2 mol%. Major cellular fatty acids of strain JC229(T) were anteiso-C-15:0, iso-C-15:0, anteiso-C-17:0 and iso-C-16:0. The peptidoglycan contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The predominant quinone system was menaquinone 7. Polar lipids of strain JC229(T) included diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and two unidentified lipids. On the basis of morphological, physiological, genetic, phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic analyses, strain JC229(T) should be assigned to a novel species of the genus Alteribacillus, for which the name Alteribacillus alkaliphilus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is JC229(T) (=LMG 28999(T) = KCTC 33726(T)). It is also suggested to transfer B. iranensis to the genus Alteribacillus as Alteribacillus iranensis comb. nov.