Urzì, C. et al., 2004. Blastococcus saxobsidens sp. nov., and emended descriptions of the genus Blastococcus Ahrens and Moll 1970 and Blastococcus aggregatus Ahrens and Moll 1970. International journal of systematic and evolutionary microbiology, 54(Pt 1), pp. 253–259

Ten Gram-positive, aerobic bacterial strains with coccoid cells occurring singly, in pairs, tetrads and small aggregates were isolated from the surface of marble and calcareous stones. The peptidoglycan contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid. The major menaquinone was MK-9(H4). The cellular fatty acid pattern consisted mainly of iso-branched chain components. According to their phylogenetic position, the organisms are members of the family Geodermatophilaceae, clustering close to Blastococcus aggregatus DSM 4725T. Based on a combination of phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and genotypic characteristics, strain BC444T and seven relatives group apart from strains BC412 (=DSM 44517) and BC521 (=DSM 44518), which themselves form two individual lineages. DNA-DNA reassociation studies revealed that members of the three lineages were only remotely related to B. aggregatus DSM 4725T; as the strain-rich cluster containing BC444T shared low DNA similarity values with strains BC412 and BC521, it will be described as a novel species of Blastococcus, for which the name Blastococcus saxobsidens sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is BC444T (=DSM 44509T=NRRL 24246T).