A novel halophilic bacterium, strain 71-iT, was isolated from Inche-Broun hypersaline lake in Golestan province, in the north of Iran. It was a Gram-stain-negative, non-endospore forming, rod-shaped bacterium. It grew at 4-40 °C (optimum 30 °C), pH 6.0-11.0 (optimum pH 7.5) and with 0.5-15 % (w/v) NaCl [optimum 3 % (w/v) NaCl]. The results of phylogenetic analyses based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence comparison indicated its affiliation to the genus Marinobacter and the low percentage of identity with the most closely related species (97.5 %), indicated its placement as a novel species within this genus. Digital DNA-DNA hybridization (dDDH) values and average nucleotide identity (ANI) analyses of this strain against closely related species confirmed its condition of novel taxon. On the other hand, the percentage of the average amino acid identity (AAI) affiliated strain 71-iT within the genus Marinobacter. The DNA G+C content of this isolate was 57.7 mol%. The major fatty acids were C16 : 0 and C16 : 1ω7c and/or C16 : 1 ω6c. Ubiquinone-9 was the major isoprenoid quinone and diphosphatidylglycerol (DPG), phosphatidylglycerol (PG) and phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) were the main polar lipids of this strain. On the basis of the phylogenomic and phenotypic (including chemotaxonomic) features, we propose strain 71-iT (= IBRC M 11023T = CECT 30160T = LMG 29252T) as the type strain of a novel species within the genus Marinobacter, with the name Marinobacter iranensis sp. nov. Genomic detections of this strain in various metagenomic databases indicate that it is a relatively abundant species in environments with low salinities (approximately 5 % salinity), but not in hypersaline habitats with high salt concentrations.
Keywords: Marinobacter; extremophiles; halophiles; hypersaline lake; taxogenomics; taxonomy.