ORIGINAL PAPER Diversity of culturable actinobacteria from Qinghai–Tibet plateau, China Yu-Qin Zhang • Hong-Yu Liu • Jie Chen • Li-Jie Yuan • Wei Sun • Li-Xin Zhang • Yue-Qin Zhang • Li-Yan Yu • Wen-Jun Li Received: 3 December 2009 / Accepted: 22 March 2010 / Published online: 2 April 2010 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 Abstract To investigate the diversity of culturable actinobacteria and further screen for microbial pharma- ceutics, seven different media were chosen to isolate actinobacteria from 87 soil samples collected from Qinghai–Tibet plateau. A total of 1930 strains was isolated and identified to belong to 11 suborders, i.e., Actinopolysporineae, Corynebacterineae, Frankineae, Glycomycineae, Kineosporiineae, Micrococcineae, Micromonosporineae, Propionibacterineae, Pseudono- cardineae, Streptomycineae and Streptosporangineae, and 16 families, i.e., Nocardioidaceae, Actinopolyspor- aceae, Actinosynnemataceae, Dermacoccaceae, Geo- dermatophilaceae, Glycomycetaceae, Kineosporiaceae, Microbacteriaceae, Micromonosporaceae, Nocardia- ceae, Promicromonosporaceae, Propionibacteriaceae, Pseudonocardiaceae, Streptomycetaceae, Streptospo- rangiaceae and Thermomonosporaceae. A primary taxonomic study showed that at least 22 genera of actinobacteria were identified from the soil samples, among which ten isolates represented hitherto unknown species. The results showed that there was abundant actinobacterial species diversity in the soil samples from the Qinghai–Tibet plateau. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s10482-010-9434-4) contains supple- mentary material, which is available to authorized users. Y.-Q. Zhang Á H.-Y. Liu Á J. Chen Á L.-J. Yuan Á W. Sun Á Y.-Q. Zhang Á L.-Y. Yu (&) Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100050, People’s Republic of China e-mail: yuliyan_2000@yahoo.com Y.-Q. Zhang e-mail: zhyuqin@126.com W.-J. Li (&) The Key Laboratory for Microbial Resources of the Ministry of Education, Kunming, People’s Republic of China e-mail: wjli@ynu.edu.cn W.-J. Li Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio- Resources, Yunnan Institute of Microbiology, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, People’s Republic of China L.-X. Zhang Á W.-J. Li Guangdong Key Laboratory of Marine Materia Medica, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510301, People’s Republic of China L.-X. Zhang Á W.-J. Li Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100101 Beijing, People’s Republic of China 123 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (2010) 98:213–223 DOI 10.1007/s10482-010-9434-4