Chromohalobacter beijerinckii is a motile, rod-like, salt-loving, Gram-negative

Gram-negative

Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain crystal violet dye in the Gram staining protocol. In a Gram stain test, a counterstain is added after the crystal violet, coloring all Gram-negative bacteria with a red or pink color...

 soil

Soil

Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...

 bacterium, 0.4–0.6 μm by 1.8–2.5 μm.

The bacterium was isolated in 1935 by T. Hof from fermented salted bean

Bean

Bean is a common name for large plant seeds of several genera of the family Fabaceae used for human food or animal feed....

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

Calcium is the chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. It has an atomic mass of 40.078 amu. Calcium is a soft gray alkaline earth metal, and is the fifth-most-abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust...

 salt of tetrahydroxy-p-benzoquinone

Tetrahydroxy-1,4-benzoquinone

Tetrahydroxy-1,4-benzoquinone, also called tetrahydroxy-p-benzoquinone, tetrahydoxybenzoquinone, or tetrahydroxyquinone , is an organic compound with formula C6O24...

 Ca₂C₆O₆, derived from the beans' myo-inositol

Inositol

Inositol or cyclohexane-1,2,3,4,5,6-hexol is a chemical compound with formula 6126 or 6, a sixfold alcohol of cyclohexane. It exists in nine possible stereoisomers, of which the most prominent form, widely occurring in nature, is cis-1,2,3,5-trans-4,6-cyclohexanehexol, or myo-inositol...

. The bacterium thrives in media with salt

Sodium chloride

Sodium chloride, also known as salt, common salt, table salt or halite, is an inorganic compound with the formula NaCl. Sodium chloride is the salt most responsible for the salinity of the ocean and of the extracellular fluid of many multicellular organisms...

 (NaCl) concentrations ranging from 0.35% to 25%; the optimum growth occurs at 8 to 10% NaCl, pH

PH

In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...

 7.5, and 35 °C.

Reclassification

In 2006, comparison of the DNA

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

s 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 of the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

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

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

salty food.