Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 32-34. (2014)

Zoology

A novel halophilic archaeon of Haloferax genus isolated from Telega (Prahova county, Romania) rock salt crystah

of growing in the presence of up to 1 M magnesium chloride, with an optimum at 0.7—0.8 M. The RF1 strain grows optimum at 38°C and pH 7.5, is catalase and oxidase positive, producing indol from tryptophan and H^S from sodium thiosulphate. No anaerobic growth in the presence of nitrate was recorded. Nitrite is not produced and the test for producing gas from nitrite is negative. In adition, RF1 cannot hydrolyze starch, casein, Tween80 and gelatin. Also, it is sensitive to sodium deoxycholate, and resistant to chloramphenicol, novobiocin, bacitracin, erythromycin, penicillin, ampicillin and neomycin. The membrane lipid profile contains PGP-Me, PG, PA, S-DGA-1, DGA-1. These characteristics suggest that this halophilic strain pertains to Haloferax genus.

Acknowledgements

The authors express their warm gratitude to Dr. Sergiu Fendrihan from “The Romanian Bioresource Centre and Advanced Research Association” for help to obtain the strain RF1.

This work was supported by RO1567TBB05/2013 grant to the Institute of Biology Bucharest.

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