Microbial culturomics unravels the halophilic microbiota repertoire of table salt: description of Gracilibacillus massiliensis sp. nov.

BACKGROUND: Microbial culturomics represents an ongoing revolution in the characterization of environmental and human microbiome. METHODS: By using three media containing high salt concentration (100, 150, and 200 g/L), the halophilic microbial culturome of a commercial table salt was determined. RESULTS: is 4,207,226 bp long, composed of 13 scaffolds with 36.05% of G+C content. It contains 3,908 genes (3,839 protein-coding and 69 RNA genes). At least 1,983 (52%) orthologous proteins were not shared with the closest phylogenetic species. Hundred twenty-six genes (3.3%) were identified as ORFans. CONCLUSIONS: Microbial culturomics can dramatically improve the characterization of the food and environmental microbiota repertoire, deciphering new bacterial species and new genes. Further studies will clarify the geographic specificity and the putative role of these new microbes and their related functional genetic content in environment, health, and disease.