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

The taxonomic position of an actinomycete strain YIM 63135(T), 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(H-6) (62.8%), MK-9(H-8) (31.4%) and MK-9(H-4) (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-C-16:0 (30.0%), anteiso-C-17:0 (27.3%) and anteiso-C-15:0 (17.0%). The DNA G + C content of strain YIM 63135(T) was 72.6 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain YIM 63135(T) is a member of the genus Streptomyces and exhibited 99.9% gene sequence similarity to Streptomyces armeniacus NBRC 12555(T), while low sequence similarity values (<97.0%) distinguished strain YIM 63135(T) from all other Streptomyces species. DNA-DNA hybridization studies suggested that strain YIM 63135(T) represents a different genomic species. On the basis of phenotypic and phylogenetic characteristics, strain YIM 63135(T) was considered to represent a novel species of the genus Streptomyces, for which the name Streptomyces artemisiae sp. nov. is proposed, with YIM 63135(T) (=CCTCC AA 208059(T) = DSM 41953(T)) as the type strain.