Reclassification of Bacillus marismortui as Salibacillus marismortui comb.nov.

Recently, the features of a group of strains isolated from Dead Sea enrichm ents obtained in 1936 by one of us (B. E. Volcani) were described. They wer e Gram-positive, moderately halophilic, spore-forming rods, and were placed in a new species, Bacillus marismortui. At: the same time, the new genus S alibacillus was proposed for the halophilic species Bacillus salexigens. B. marismortui and Salibacillus salexigens have similar phenotypic characteri stics and the same peptidoglycan type. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S r RNA sequence comparisons showed that they are sufficiently closely related (96.6 % similarity) as to warrant placement in the same genus. However, DNA -DNA hybridization experiments showed that they constitute two separate spe cies (41% DNA similarity). Therefore the reclassification of Bacillus maris mortui as Salibacillus marismortui comb. nov. is proposed.