Saccharopolyspora qinghaiensis sp. nov., a novel actinobacterium isolated from a salt lake

A novel halophilic, Gram-positive and aerobic actinobacterium, designated strain AFM 20147^T, was isolated from a sediment sample collected from Xiaochaidan Salt Lake of Qinghai, China. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain AFM 20147^T belongs to the genus Saccharopolyspora, shows high sequence similarities to Saccharopolyspora griseoalba AFM 10238^T (99.41%) and Saccharopolyspora halophila YIM 90500^T (98.20%), and has low similarities (below 98.0%) with other members of the genus. The DNA-DNA relatedness values of strain AFM 20147^T with S. griseoalba AFM 10238^T and S. halophila YIM 90500^T were 40 ± 1.7% and 37 ± 2.3%, respectively. Optimal growth was found to occur at 28 °C, pH 7.5 and in the presence of 7.5% (w/v) NaCl. Strain AFM 20147^T was found to contain meso-diaminopimelic acid as the cell wall diamino acid, and galactose and arabinose as the whole cell sugars. The major fatty acids were identified as iso-C_15:0, iso-C_16:0 and anteiso-C_17:0. The major polar lipids were identified as diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylmethylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol and phosphatidylcholine. MK-9(H₄) was found to be the predominant menaquinone and the DNA G+C content was determined to be 67.8 mol%. DNA-DNA relatedness data, together with phenotypic and chemotaxonomic differences, clearly distinguish the isolate from its close neighbours. On the basis of the data from this polyphasic analysis, a novel species Saccharopolyspora qinghaiensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is S. qinghaiensis AFM 20147^T (=KCTC 49190^T =CGMCC 4.7556^T).