A Gram-positive, moderately halophilic, alkalitolerant, filamentous, aerobic actinomycete, designated strain JSM 073097 T , was isolated from a sea anemone collected from a tidal flat in the South China Sea. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that the new isolate was a member of the genus Nocardiopsis and was most closely related to Nocardiopsis kunsanensis HA-9 T , Nocardiopsis xinjiangensis YIM 90004 T and Nocardiopsis salina YIM 90010 T (99.6, 98.5 and 98.1 % similarity, respectively). Phenotypic characteristics and chemotaxonomic data also indicated that strain JSM 073097 T was a member of the genus Nocardiopsis. The strain grew well on most of the media tested, producing white to yellow-white substrate mycelium and white aerial mycelium and straight to flexuous hyphae. The substrate mycelium was well developed and fragmented with age; the aerial mycelium produced long, straight to flexuous spore chains with non-motile, smooth-surfaced, rod-shaped spores. The strain grew in the presence of 1-15 % (w/v) total salts and at pH 6.0-10.5 and 20-35 6C; optimum growth occurred in the presence of 5-7 % (w/v) total salts and at pH 8.5 and 25 6C. Whole-cell hydrolysates of strain JSM 073097 T contained meso-diaminopimelic acid and no diagnostic sugars. The predominant menaquinones were MK-10(H 4 ), ) and MK-10(H 8 ). The major cellular fatty acids were iso-C 15 : 0 , iso-C 16 : 0 , anteiso-C 16 : 0 and 10-methyl C 18 : 0 . Polar lipids comprised diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylglycerol. The DNA G+C content of strain JSM 073097 T was 70.4 mol%. The combination of phylogenetic analysis, DNA-DNA relatedness data, phenotypic characteristics and chemotaxonomic data supported the suggestion that strain JSM 073097 T represents a novel species of the genus Nocardiopsis, for which the name Nocardiopsis litoralis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is JSM 073097The genus Nocardiopsis was first described by Meyer (1976) and, at the time or writing, comprises 28 recognized species (Meyer, 1976;Grund & Kroppenstedt, 1990;Yassin et al., 1993Yassin et al., , 1997Al-Tai & Ruan, 1994;Chun et al., 2000;Evtushenko et al., 2000; Peltola et al., 2001;Al-Zarban et al., 2002; Kämpfer et al., 2002; Schippers et al., 2002;Li et al., 2003Li et al., , 2006Hozzein et al., 2004; Sabry et al., 2004;Chen et al., 2008;Hozzein & Goodfellow, 2008;Yang et al., 2008;Zhang et al., 2008 filamentous, Gram-positive strain, designated JSM 073097 T , was isolated from a sea anemone collected from a tidal flat near Naozhou Island, southern China. Based on the results of the present taxonomic study, this strain is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Nocardiopsis.
Strain JSM 073097T was isolated from homogenates of a sea anemone by plating 1 : 10 serial dilutions of the sample on marine agar 2216 (MA; Difco) supplemented with 10 % (w/v) NaCl and cultivating at 25 u C for 2 weeks. After primary isolation and purification, the isolate was preserved both on slants of MA supplemented with ...