Naasia lichenicola sp. nov., an actinobacterium isolated from lichen

A Gram-stain-positive, yellow-pigmented, catalase-positive and oxidase-negative, strictly aerobic actinobacterium, designated strain YIM 131853^T, was isolated from lichen collected from the South Bank of the Baltic Sea. The novel strain was non-spore-forming, short rod-shaped and motile with a single polar flagellum. The strain could grow at 4-37 °C (optimum, 28 °C), at pH 4.0-12.0 (pH 6.0) and at 0-3 % (w/v) NaCl (1 %). The DNA G+C content of strain YIM 131853^T based on the draft genome sequence was 68.3 mol%. Predominant cellular fatty acids (>10 %) were identified as anteiso-C_15 : 0, anteiso-C_17 : 0 and iso-C_16 : 0. The polar lipid profile included diphosphatidylglycerol, dimannosyldiacylglycerol, three unknown glycolipids, two unknown phospholipids and one unknown lipid. Strain YIM 131853^T had 2,4-diaminobutyric acid as the diagnostic cell-wall diamino acid, galactose and glucose as whole-cell sugars, and MK-10, MK-14, MK-13 and MK-12 as the major menaquinones. Although strain YIM 131853^T exhibited a highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity (96.6 %) to Amnibacterium kyonggiense NBRC 109360^T, phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that the strain formed a tight lineage with Naasia aerilata NBRC 108725^T (96.5 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity), which was the only species of genus Naasia. Based on the results of phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic analyses, strain YIM 131853^T should belong to the genus Naasia and represents a novel species of the genus Naasia, for which the name Naasia lichenicola sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is YIM 131853^T (=CGMCC 4.7565^T=NBRC 113605^T).