Nocardia xestospongiae sp nov., isolated from a marine sponge in the Andaman Sea

A marine sponge-derived actinomycete, strain ST01-07(T), was isolated from Xestospongia sp. collected from the Andaman Sea. The strain was characterised taxonomically using a polyphasic approach. The strain contained meso-diaminopimelic acid in the peptidoglycan, whole-cell sugars were arabinose, galactose, glucose, mannose and ribose. Mycolic acids that co-migrated with those from Nocardia araoensis NBRC 100135(T) were observed in whole-cell extracts. MK-8(H4 omega-cycl) was the predominant menaquinone. Major cellular fatty acids were C-17:1 omega 8c, C-16:0 and C-17:0. The diagnostic phospholipids in the cell consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylinositol. Phylogenetic analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence showed that strain ST01-07(T) belonged to the genus Nocardia and was most closely related to N. araoensis IFM 0575(T) (98.71% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity), Nocardia niwae W9241(T) (98.56 %), Nocardia beijingensis AS4.1521(T) (98.41 %) and Nocardia arthritidis IFM 10035(T) (98.36 %). In addition, low DNA-DNA relatedness values (13.6 +/- 0.1% to 40.1 +/- 0.6%) confirmed that strain ST01-07(T) represents a novel species of the genus Nocardia, for which the name Nocardia xestospongiae sp. nov., is proposed. The type strain is ST01-07(T) (=BCC 45622(T) = NBRC 109069(T)).