Downloaded from www.microbiologyresearch.org by IP: 54.70.40.11 On: Sat, 09 Mar 2019 21:45:16 Amycolatopsis halophila sp. nov., a halophilic actinomycete isolated from a salt lake Shu-Kun Tang, 1 Yun Wang, 2 Tong-Wei Guan, 3 Jae-Chan Lee, 4 Chang-Jin Kim 4 and Wen-Jun Li 1 Correspondence Wen-Jun Li wjli@ynu.edu.cn or liact@hotmail.com 1 The Key Laboratory for Microbial Resources of the Ministry of Education, and Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio-resources, Yunnan Institute of Microbiology, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, PR China 2 Xinjiang Institute of Microbiology, Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Science, Urumqi, Xinjiang 830091, PR China 3 Key Laboratary of Protection and Utilization of Biological Resources in Tarim Basin of Xinjiang Production & Construction Corps, Tarim University, Alar, Xinjiang 843300, PR China 4 Functional Metabolite Research Center KRIBB, 52 Eoeun-dong, Yuseong gu, Daejeon 305-806, Republic of Korea A novel halophilic actinomycete, designated strain YIM 93223 T , was isolated from a salt lake in Xinjiang Province, north-west China, and was subjected to a polyphasic taxonomic study. The isolate grew at 25–45 6C, at pH 6–8 and in the presence of 1–15 % (w/v) NaCl; no growth was observed in the absence of NaCl. Strain YIM 93223 T contained meso-diaminopimelic acid, glutamic acid and alanine as cell-wall amino acids, and glucose and galactose as major whole-cell-wall sugars. Major fatty acids were iso-C 16 : 0 ,C 16 : 0 and C 16 : 1 v7c/iso-C 15 : 0 2-OH. MK-8(H 4 ) was the predominant menaquinone. The genomic DNA G+C content was 66.1 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain YIM 93223 T belongs to the genus Amycolatopsis. It shared highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity with Amycolatopsis palatopharyngis 1BDZ T (96.6 %) and Amycolatopsis marina Ms392A T (96.4 %), but lower values (94.5–96.2%) with the type strains of other recognized species of the genus Amycolatopsis. On the basis of the data from this polyphasic study, strain YIM 93223 T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Amycolatopsis, for which the name Amycolatopsis halophila sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is YIM 93223 T (5DSM 45216 T 5KCTC 19403 T ). The genus Amycolatopsis was first established by Lechevalier et al. (1986) and was classified in the family Pseudo- nocardiaceae, suborder Pseudonocardineae (Stackebrandt et al., 1997). At the time of writing, it comprises 41 recognized species, most of which have been described in the past few years: Amycolatopsis australiensis (Tan et al., 2006), A. benzoatilytica (Majumdar et al., 2006), A. decaplanina (Wink et al., 2004), A. echigonensis (Ding et al., 2007), A. jejuensis (Lee, 2006), A. halotolerans (Lee, 2006), A. lurida (Lechevalier et al., 1986; Stackebrandt et al., 2004), A. marina (Bian et al., 2009), A. minnesotensis (Lee et al., 2006), A. nigrescens (Groth et al., 2007), A. niigatensis (Ding et al., 2007), A. palatopharyngis (Huang et al., 2004), A. plumensis (Saintpierre-Bonaccio et al., 2005), A. regifaucium (Tan et al., 2007), A. rifamycinica (Bala et al., 2004), A. saalfeldensis (Carlsohn et al., 2007), A. taiwanensis (Tseng et al., 2006), A. tucumanensis (Albarracı´n et al., 2010) and A. ultiminotia (Lee, 2009). These species are non-halophilic actinomycetes, and have been isolated from geographically diverse soils, clinical material, vegetable matter, the wall of a hypogean cave, and ocean sediment. During a study of halophilic actinomycetes from a soil sample collected from Qijiaojing Lake in Xinjiang Province, north-west China (43 u 269 520 N 91 u 299 180 E), an Amycolatopsis-like isolate, YIM 93223 T , was picked after 3 weeks of incubation at 37 u C on cellulose-casein multi-salt medium (Tang et al., 2008). The strain was maintained on modified International Streptomyces Project (ISP) medium 4 slants containing 5 % (w/v) NaCl at 4 u C, and as a glycerol suspension (20 %, v/v) at 220 u C. Biomass for chemical and molecular studies was obtained Abbreviation: meso-DAP, meso-diaminopimelic acid. The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain YIM 93223 T is FJ606836. A scanning electron micrograph of spore chains of strain YIM 93223 T , chromatograms of hydrolysates of whole-cell sugars and menaquinones of strain YIM 93223 T and reference taxa, and a figure showing the polar lipid composition of strain YIM 93223 T are available with the online version of this paper. International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (2010), 60, 1073–1078 DOI 10.1099/ijs.0.012427-0 012427 G 2010 IUMS Printed in Great Britain 1073