Nakamurella leprariae sp. nov., isolated from a lichen sample

A novel actinobacterium, YIM 132084^T, was isolated from Lepraria sp. lichen collected from Yunnan province, south-west PR China and identified by a polyphasic taxonomic approach. The strain was Gram-stain-positive, aerobic, catalase-positive, oxidase-negative, non-motile and coccus-shaped. Colonies were round, convex, smooth and light orange yellow in color. It grew at 10-40 °C (optimum 28 °C), at pH 6.0-11.0 (optimum pH 7.0) and in the presence of 0-4% NaCl (optimum 0%). Strain YIM 132084^T comprised diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylinositol as the major polar lipids, MK-8(H₄) as the predominant menaquinone, and anteiso-C_15:0, anteiso-C_17:0, iso-C_15:0 and iso-C_16:0 as major fatty acids. Strain YIM 132084^T had meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid in the cell-wall peptidoglycan, and mannose, ribose, glucose and rhamnose as whole-cell sugars. The 16S rRNA gene sequence showed high level of similarity with Nakamurella flavida KCTC 19127^T (97.7%) and Nakamurella flava CGMCC 4.7524^T (97.7%). The G + C content of the genomic DNA was 72.4 mol%. Based on draft genome sequences, strain YIM 132084^T showed an average nucleotide identity value of 76.1% and 74.9%, a digital DNA-DNA hybridization value of 20.9% and 20.6% with the reference strains Nakamurella flavida and Nakamurella flava, respectively. The results of the phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic analyses showed that strain YIM 132084^T represents a novel species of the genus Nakamurella, for which the name Nakamurella leprariae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is YIM 132084^T (= CGMCC 4.7667^T = NBRC 114280^T = KCTC 49367^T).