Nannocystis konarekensis sp. nov., a novel myxobacterium from an Iranian desert

An orange-coloured myxobacterium, MNa11734^T, was isolated from desert in Iran. MNa11734^T had rod-shaped vegetative cells, moved by gliding and was bacteriolytic. No real fruiting body formation could be observed, but sporangioles were produced on water agar. The strain was mesophilic, strictly aerobic and chemoheterotrophic. 16S rRNA gene analyses revealed that MNa11734^T belonged to the family Nannocystaceae, genus Nannocystis and was closely related to Nannocystis pusilla Na p29^T (DSM 14622^T) and Nannocystis exedens Na e1^T (DSM 71^T), with 97.8 and 97.6 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, respectively. Laboratory-measured DNA-DNA hybridization showed only 9.5/15.7 % (reciprocal) similarity between the novel strain and N. pusilla Na p29^T, and 14.1/20.4 % between the strain and N. exedens Na e1^T, whereas DNA-DNA hybridization estimates derived from draft genome sequences were 21.8-23.0 % and 22.2-23.7 %, respectively, depending on the calculation method. The G+C content of DNA from Nannocystis konarekensis MNa11734^T was 73.3 mol%, for N. pusilla Nap29^T it was 71.8 mol% and for N. exedens Nae1^T it was 72.2 mol%. The major fatty acids of the new strain were C16 : 1 (56.2 %), iso-C17 : 0 (14.4 %), C14 : 0 (8.2 %), C16 : 0 (6.6 %) and iso-C15 : 0 (5.9 %). Strain MNa11734^T exhibited phylogenetic and physiological similarities to the two other species of Nannocystis, i.e. N. pusilla and N. exedens, but the differences were sufficient enough to represent a novel species, for which the name Nannocystiskonarekensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MNa11734^T (=DSM 104509^T=NCCB 100618^T).