Oceanobacillus pacificus sp. nov., isolated from a deep-sea sediment.

A moderately halophilic bacterial strain, designated XH204(T), was isolated from deep-sea sediment core (45° 58' S 163° 11' W) of the South Pacific Gyre during the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 329. The strain was Gram-stain-positive, rod-shaped, motile by peritrichous flagella and produced ellipsoidal endospores subterminally positioned within swollen sporangia. Growth of strain XH204(T) occurred at 15-42 °C (optimum 37 °C), in the presence of 0-14 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum 4 %) and at pH 7.0-10.0 (optimum pH 8.0). Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain XH204(T) belonged to the genus Oceanobacillus and showed the highest sequence similarity to Oceanobacillus profundus CL-MP28(T) (95.6 %); strain XH204(T) exhibited 93.4 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to the type strain of the type species of the genus Oceanobacillus, Oceanobacillus iheyensis HTE831(T). The dominant fatty acids of strain XH204(T) were anteiso-C15 : 0, iso-C14 : 0 and iso-C16 : 0. The cell wall of strain XH204(T) contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid, and ribose, glucose and galactose as the major whole-cell sugars. The major polar lipids were phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylinositol. Menaquinone-7 (MK-7) was the only isoprenoid quinone and the DNA G+C content was 38.8 mol%. Based on the phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic analysis, strain XH204(T) represents a novel species of the genus Oceanobacillus, for which the name Oceanobacillus pacificus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is XH204(T) ( = DSM 25873(T) = JCM 18381(T)).