Virgibacillus alimentarius sp. nov., isolated from a traditional korean food

A novel, Gram-positive, rod-shaped, motile, endospore-forming, halophilic bacterial strain, J18 ^T, was isolated from a traditional salt-fermented seafood made of gizzard shad in Korea. Colonies were convex, cream-coloured and 1.0-2.0 mm in diameter after incubation for 3 days on marine agar. Growth occurred at pH 7.0-11.0 (optimum, pH 10.0), at 4-40°C (optimum, 37°C) and in the presence of 0-30% NaCl (optimum, 9-10%). On the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, strain J18 ^T was related most closely to Virgibacillus byunsanensis ISL-24 ^T (96.3% similarity), Virgibacillus carmonensis LMG 20964 ^T (96.2%), Virgibacillus halodenitrificans DSM 10037 ^T (96.0%), Virgibacillus arcticus Hal 1 ^T (95.5%) and Virgibacillus necropolis LMG 19488 ^T (95.5%). The major fatty acids were anteiso-C _15:0 and anteiso-C _17:0. The DNA G+C content of strain J18 ^T was 37.0 mol%. The cell-wall peptidoglycan was of the meso-diaminopimelic acid type. The major quinone was menaquinone 7 (MK-7). Based on phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic data, strain J18T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Virgibacillus, for which the name Virgibacillus alimentarius sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is J18 ^T(=KACC 14624 ^T =JCM 16994 ^T).