Amycolatopsis flava sp. nov., a halophilic actinomycete isolated from Dead Sea

A novel halophilic, filamentous actinomycete, designated strain AFM 10111(T), was isolated from a sediment sample collected from the Dead Sea of Israel and its taxonomic position was established by using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. The isolate grew at 20-35 °C, pH 5-12 and with 1-30 % NaCl. The substrate mycelium is white or yellow, well developed, branched and fragments into squarish, rod-like elements. The isolate contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as cell-wall diamino acid, and arabinose and galactose as whole-cell sugars. The major menaquinone was MK-9(H4). The polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylethanolamine phosphatidylmethylethanolamine and one unidentified phospholipid. Major fatty acids were iso-C16:0, iso-C16:1 H, C17:1 ω6c. The DNA G + C content was 67.7 mol %. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that strain AFM 10111(T) belongs to the genus Amycolatopsis, and formed a distinct clade with Amycolatopsis marina CGMCC 4.3568(T) and Amycolatopsis palatopharyngis CGMCC 4.1729(T), with the sequence similarity 98.4 and 98.6 %. The level of DNA-DNA relatedness between the strain AFM 10111(T) and A. marina CGMCC 4.3568(T) and A. palatopharyngis CGMCC 4.1729(T) were 46.9 ± 3.08 and 49.4 ± 1.25 %. The combined genotypic and phenotypic data indicate that strain AFM 10111(T) represents a novel species of the genus Amycolatopsis, for which the name Amycolatopsis flava sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is AFM 10111(T) (= DSM 46658(T) = CGMCC 4.7123(T)).