Hongia gen. nov., a new genus of the order Actinomycetales

An aerobic, nocardioform actinomycete, named LM 161(T), was isolated from a soil sample obtained from a gold mine in Kongiu, Republic of Korea. This o rganism formed well-differentiated aerial and substrate mycelia and produce d branched hyphae that fragmented into short or elongated rods. The cell wa ll contains major amounts of LL-diaminopimelic acid, alanirre, glycine, glu tamic acid, mannose, glucose, galactose, ribose and acetyl muramic acid. Th e major phospholipids of this isolate are phosphatidylcholine, diphosphatid ylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylinositol. and the major is oprenologue is a tetrahydrogenated menaquinone with nine isoprene units. Th e whole-cell hydrolysate of strain LM 161(T) contains 12-methyltetradecanoi c and 14-methylpentadecanoic acids as the predominant fatty acids, but does not contain mycolic acids. The G+C content of the DNA is 71.3 mol%. The ph ylogenetic position of the test strain was investigated using an almost com plete 16S rDNA sequence. The isolate formed the deepest branch in the clade encompassing the members of the suborder Propionibacterineae Rainey ef at 1997. On the basis of chemical, phenotypic and genealogical data, it is pro posed that this isolate be classified within a new genus as Hongia koreensi s gen. nov., sp. nov. in the order Actinomycetales. The type strain is LM 1 61(T) (= IMSNU 50530(T)).