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A novel highly boron tolerant bacterium, Bacillus boroniphilus sp. nov., isolated from soil, that requires boron for its growth

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Abstract

Three strains of gram-positive, motile, rod-shaped and boron (B)-tolerant bacterium were isolated from naturally B containing soil of Hisarcik area in the Kutahya Province, Turkey. The strains, designated as T-14A, T-15ZT and T-17s, produced spherical or ellipsoidal endospores in a terminal bulging sporangium. The strains required B for the growth and can tolerate more than 450 mM B. These also tolerated up to 7.0% (w/v) NaCl in the presence of 50 mM B in agar medium but grew optimally without NaCl. The temperature range for growth was 16–37°C (optimal of 30°C), whereas the pH range was 6.5–9.0 (optimal of 7.5–8.5). The DNA G + C content was 41.1–42.2 mol% and the predominant cellular fatty acid was iso-C15:0. The major respiratory quinone system was detected as MK-7 and the diamino acid of the peptidoglycan was meso-diaminopimelic acid. Based on phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics, phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences data and DNA–DNA re-association values, we concluded that the three strains belong to a novel species of the genus Bacillus, the type strain of which is T-15ZT and for which we proposed the name, B. boroniphilus sp. nov. (DSM 17376T = IAM 15287T = ATCC BAA-1204T).

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Abbreviations

B:

Boron

Nts:

Nucleotides

TSB:

Tryptic soya broth

TSA:

Tryptic soya agar

PBS:

Phosphate buffered saline solution

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully extend our thanks to Dr. Cavit Çöl for his kind help in collecting soil samples, to Dr. Atsushi Yamazoe for providing help and technical guidance in Biolog experiment, to JEOL, Tokyo, Japan for assistance in EM, to Dr. Marcelino Suzuki (CBL, University of Maryland) and Professor Dr. Richard Bell (Murdoch University, Perth, Australia) for critically reading/editing the manuscript and their valuable comments.

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Correspondence to Iftikhar Ahmed or Toru Fujiwara.

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Communicated by K. Horikoshi.

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Ahmed, I., Yokota, A. & Fujiwara, T. A novel highly boron tolerant bacterium, Bacillus boroniphilus sp. nov., isolated from soil, that requires boron for its growth. Extremophiles 11, 217–224 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-006-0027-0

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