Actinophytocola algeriensis sp. nov., an actinobacterium isolated from Saharan soil

During our investigations of new actinobacterial taxa, a novel actinobacterial strain, designated MB20^T, was isolated from a Saharan soil sample, collected in the Mzab region (Ghardaïa province, southern Algeria). In order to reveal its taxonomic position, the novel strain was characterized following a polyphasic taxonomic approach. It was noticed that strain MB20^T produced white, branched and fragmented substrate mycelium with no aerial mycelium on most of the media tested. Chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic studies clearly demonstrated that strain MB20^T belonged to the family Pseudonocardiaceae and was closely related to the genus Actinophytocola. Cell-wall hydrolysates contained meso-diaminopimelic acid but not glycine, and whole-cell hydrolysates contained galactose, glucose and ribose. The diagnostic phospholipid was phosphatidylethanolamine. Mycolic acids were not detected while the predominant fatty acid was found to be iso-branched hexadecanoate (iso-C16 : 0). The major menaquinone was MK-9(H4). Results of the 16S rRNA gene sequence comparison revealed that strain MB20^T shared the highest degree of similarity with Actinophytocola gilvus DSM 45828^T (98.5 %), Actinophytocola corallina DSM 45659^T (98.0 %) and Actinophytocola timorensis DSM 45660^T (97.5 %). However, DNA-DNA hybridization studies showed only 32.9 % similarity with A. timorensis, 23.7 % similarity with A. gilvus and 17.9 % similarity with A. corallina. On the basis of phenotypic characteristics, 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons and DNA-DNA hybridization, strain MB20^T was revealed to be a representative of a novel species of the genus Actinophytocola, for which the name Actinophytocola algeriensis sp. nov. (type strain MB20^T =DSM 46746^T =CECT 8960^T) is proposed.