''Chromohalobacter beijerinckii'' is a motile, rod-like, salt-loving,

Gram-negative Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain the crystal violet stain used in the Gram staining method of bacterial differentiation. They are characterized by their cell envelopes, which are composed of a thin peptidoglycan cell wall ...

soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former te ...

bacterium Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

, 0.4–0.6 μm by 1.8–2.5 μm. The bacterium was isolated in 1935 by T. Hof from fermented salted

bean A bean is the seed of several plants in the family Fabaceae, which are used as vegetables for human or animal food. They can be cooked in many different ways, including boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes th ...

s preserved in brine. Hof named it ''Pseudomonas beijerinckii'' and identified it as the organism responsible for the purple color of that food. The pigment was the

calcium Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to ...

salt of tetrahydroxy-''p''-benzoquinone Ca₂C₆O₆, derived from the beans' ''myo''-inositol. The bacterium thrives in media with

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quantitie ...

(NaCl) concentrations ranging from 0.35% to 25%; the optimum growth occurs at 8 to 10% NaCl, pH 7.5, and 35 °C. Janina Peçonek, Claudia Gruber, Virginia Gallego, Antonio Ventosa, Hans-Jürgen Busse, Peter Kämpfer, Christian Radax, and Helga Stan-Lotter (2006), ''Reclassification of ''Pseudomonas beijerinckii'' Hof 1935 as ''Chromohalobacter beijerinckii'' comb. nov., and emended description of the species''. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, volume 56, 1953–1957. Antonio Ventosa, Joaquín J.Nieto, and Aharon Oren (1998), ''Biology of Moderately Halophilic Aerobic Bacteria''. MICROBIOLOGY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY REVIEWS, Vol. 62, No. 2, June 1998, p. 504–544.

Reclassification

In 2006, comparison of the DNAs of ''P. beijerinckiis DNA with that of other ''Chromohalobacter'' bacteria indicated that it definitely belonged to that genus, and in fact was virtually identical to a species of ''Chromohalobacter'' recently isolated from

salted herring Spekesild (Norwegian for ''raw herring pickled in salt'') is Atlantic herring preserved using salt. Salt curing The preservation takes place by the salt extracting water from the herring, and thus poorer growth conditions are created for microbe ...

of the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

. Therefore the name was changed to ''Chromohalobacter beijerinckii''. It is very similar but distinct from the species '' Chromohalobacter japonicus'', isolated in 2007 from a

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

ese salty food.Cristina Sanches-Porro, Hiroo Tokunaga, Masao Tokunaga, and Antonio Ventosa (2007): ''Chromohalobacter japonicus sp. nov., a moderately halophilic bacterium isolated from a Japanese salty food''. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, vol. 57 (10), pp. 2262-2266.

References

External links

Type strain of ''Chromohalobacter beijerinckii'' at Bac''Dive'' - the Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase
Oceanospirillales Bacteria described in 1935 {{Oceanospirillales-stub