An extremely halophilic red micro-organism designated strain TM T was isolated from a solar saltern in Alexandria, Egypt. The micro-organism stains Gramnegative, is very pleomorphic, non-motile and strictly aerobic and requires at least 10 g NaCl l N1 for growth. The growth optimum is 250 g NaCl l N1 . Growth is also observed over a wide range of MgSO 4 concentrations (10-40 g l N1 ). Aerobic reduction of nitrate without gas production was detected. Cells grew aerobically in a minimal salts medium containing ammonium chloride and glucose. Strain TM T produced acid from fructose, glucose, rhamnose, maltose and glycerol. The GMC content of the DNA was 595O03 mol %. On the basis of polar lipid analysis, the isolate belonged to the genus Haloferax. Analysis of the 16S rDNA sequence showed the highest similarity (S 99 %) to be to the type strain Haloferax volcanii. Although the spectrum of antibiotic susceptibility was similar to that of validly described species of the genus Haloferax, the strain could be distinguished from them by its different response to josamycin and rifampicin. Strain TM T is unique within the genus Haloferax in producing canthaxanthin. Comparative analysis of phenotypic properties and DNA-DNA hybridization between strain TM T and Haloferax species supported the conclusion that TM T is a novel species within this genus, for which the name Haloferax alexandrinus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is TM T (l JCM 10717 T l IFO 16590 T ).Keywords : extremely halophilic bacteria, Haloferax alexandrinus sp. nov., Archaea, carotenoids, canthaxanthin
INTRODUCTIONExtremely halophilic archaea are chemo-organotrophic organisms that satisfy some of their energy requirements with light. These archaea are classified in one order, Halobacteriales, and one family, Halobacteriaceae (Grant & Larsen, 1989). Recently, 16S rDNA sequencing, DNA-DNA hybridization, polar lipid analysis and other studies have recognized 15 genera. The currently recognized genera are Halobacterium, Haloarcula, Haloferax, Halococcus, Natronobacterium, Natronococcus (Grant & Larsen, 1990 ;Tindall et al., 1984 ;Tindall, 1992 ;Torreblanca et al., 1986) Halorubrum (McGenity & Grant, 1995), Halobaculum (Oren et al., 1995), Natrialba (Kamekura & DyallSmith, 1995), Natronomonas (Kamekura et al., 1997), Halogeometricum (Montalvo-Rodrı! guez et al., 1998), Natrinema (McGenity et al., 1998), Haloterrigena , Natronorubrum (Xu et al., 1999) and Halorhabdus (Wainø et al., 2000).Members of the family Halobacteriaceae are characterized by red-coloured cells, the colour mainly being due to the presence of C &! -carotenoids (bacterioruberins) as the major carotenoids (Kushwaha et al., 1974 ; Rønnekleiv & Liaaen-Jensen, 1992. Some members of the genera Halobacterium and Haloarcula have been reported to partially produce C %! -carotenoids and ketocarotenoids such as β-carotene, lycopene, 3-hydroxy echinenone and trans-astaxanthin as the minor carotenoids (Kelly et al., 1970 , 1974, 1982Kushwaha & Kates, 1973 ;Calo et al., 1995). Recently, the biotechnol...