A Halophilic Denitrifier, Bacillus halodenitrificans sp. nov.

Abstract

A new halotolerant denitrifier, which was isolated from a solar saltern by enrichment culture in liquid medium supplemented with 1.06 M (9%) NaNO,, grew optimally in media containing 0.5 to 1.35 M NaCI, survived and multiplied in media ranging in salinity from 0.35 to 4.25 M NaCI, and tolerated high nitrite ion concentrations, as well as high nitrate ion concentrations. The salt requirement could be provided by 1 M KNO, or KCI instead of NaCI. For this nonfermentative organism, nitrate and nitrite were the only electron acceptors tested that supported anaerobic growth on a complex medium. Washed cells reduced both nitrate and nitrite at significant rates. The isolate lacked a nitrous oxide reductase activity, utilized a variety of substrates as carbon and energy sources, and required both growth factors and organic (reduced) sulfur. Ammonia served as a nitrogen source for growth, but nitrate did not. Despite the failure of the organism to sporulate, assignment to the genus Bacillus appeared to be consistent with results of cell constituent analyses and partial 16s ribosomal ribonucleic acid sequencing. We propose the name Bacillus halodenitrijicans for this organism. A type culture has been deposited with the American Type Culture Collection, Rockville, Md., as strain ATCC 49067.

Transfer of Bacillus halodenitrificans Denariaz et al. 1989 to the genus Virgibacillus as Virgibacillus halodenitrificans comb. nov.

“…Description of Virgibacillus halodenitrificans (Denariaz et al 1989) Acid production from lactose is variable. The cell wall peptidoglycan contains mesodiaminopimelic acid.…”

“…B. halodenitrificans was also differentiated from other Virgibacillus species by some phenotypic properties (Table 1). Therefore, on the basis of the data presented, it is proposed that B. halodenitrificans Denariaz et al 1989 be transferred to the genus Virgibacillus as Virgibacillus halodenitrificans comb. nov.…”

“…Further descriptive information for the type strain is given by Denariaz et al (1989) and in Table 1. …”

Virgibacillus koreensis sp. nov., a novel bacterium from a salt field, and transfer of Virgibacillus picturae to the genus Oceanobacillus as Oceanobacillus picturae comb. nov. with emended descriptions

“…Distinctive characteristics of the novel isolate and species of the genera Virgibacillus and Oceanobacillus, taken from previous studies (Arahal et al, 1999(Arahal et al, , 2000Denariaz et al, 1989;Heyndrickx et al, 1998Heyndrickx et al, , 1999Heyrman et al, 2003;Lu et al, 2001;Wainø et al, 1999;Yoon et al, 2004;Yumoto et al, 2005), are given in Table 3.…”

“…Following the Rules of the Bacteriological Code (Lapage et al, 1992), the species of Salibacillus were transferred to Virgibacillus as Virgibacillus salexigens and Virgibacillus marismortui. Recently, Bacillus halodenitrificans, first described by Denariaz et al (1989), was transferred to the genus Virgibacillus as Virgibacillus halodenitrificans (Yoon et al, 2004). The genus Virgibacillus comprises eight species at the time of writing.…”