Bouznada, K. et al., 2016. Actinophytocola algeriensis sp. nov., an actinobacterium isolated from Saharan soil. International journal of systematic and evolutionary microbiology, 66(7), pp. 2760–2765

During our investigations of new actinobacterial taxa, a novel actinobacterial strain, designated MB20, was isolated from a Saharan soil sample, collected in the Mzab region (Ghardaïa province, southern Algeria). In order to reveal its taxonomic position, the novel strain was characterized following a polyphasic taxonomic approach. It was noticed that strain MB20 produced white, branched and fragmented substrate mycelium with no aerial mycelium on most of the media tested. Chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic studies clearly demonstrated that strain MB20 belonged to the family Pseudonocardiaceae and was closely related to the genus Actinophytocola. Cell-wall hydrolysates contained meso-diaminopimelic acid but not glycine, and whole-cell hydrolysates contained galactose, glucose and ribose. The diagnostic phospholipid was phosphatidylethanolamine. Mycolic acids were not detected while the predominant fatty acid was found to be iso-branched hexadecanoate (iso-C16 : 0). The major menaquinone was MK-9(H4). Results of the 16S rRNA gene sequence comparison revealed that strain MB20 shared the highest degree of similarity with Actinophytocola gilvus DSM 45828 (98.5 %), Actinophytocola corallina DSM 45659 (98.0 %) and Actinophytocola timorensis DSM 45660 (97.5 %). However, DNA-DNA hybridization studies showed only 32.9 % similarity with A. timorensis, 23.7 % similarity with A. gilvus and 17.9 % similarity with A. corallina. On the basis of phenotypic characteristics, 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons and DNA-DNA hybridization, strain MB20 was revealed to be a representative of a novel species of the genus Actinophytocola, for which the name Actinophytocola algeriensis sp. nov. (type strain MB20 =DSM 46746 =CECT 8960) is proposed.