Streptomyces artemisiae sp. nov., isolated from surface-sterilized tissue of Artemisia annua L.

The taxonomic position of an actinomycete strain YIM 63135T, which was isolated from the surface-sterilized tissue of Artemisia annua L. collected from Yunnan province, south-west China, was determined by using a polyphasic approach. Morphological and chemical characteristics of the novel strain were consistent with those of the genus Streptomyces. It developed a pinkish aerial mycelium and pinkish-brown substrate mycelium on oatmeal agar. The cell wall of the strain contained ll-diaminopimelic acid. The menaquinones comprised MK-9(H6) (62.8 %), MK-9(H8) (31.4 %) and MK-9(H4) (5.9 %). The phospholipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylethanolamine, an unknown glucosamine-containing phospholipid (GluNu), phosphatidylinositol mannosides and four unknown ninhydrin-negative phospholipids. The major fatty acids were iso-C16 : 0 (30.0 %), anteiso-C17 : 0 (27.3 %) and anteiso-C15 : 0 (17.0 %). The DNA G+C content of strain YIM 63135T was 72.6 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain YIM 63135T is a member of the genus Streptomyces and exhibited 99.9 % gene sequence similarity to Streptomyces armeniacus NBRC 12555T, while low sequence similarity values (<97.0 %) distinguished strain YIM 63135T from all other Streptomyces species. DNA–DNA hybridization studies suggested that strain YIM 63135T represents a different genomic species. On the basis of phenotypic and phylogenetic characteristics, strain YIM 63135T was considered to represent a novel species of the genus Streptomyces, for which the name Streptomyces artemisiae sp. nov. is proposed, with YIM 63135T (=CCTCC AA 208059T =DSM 41953T) as the type strain.