Catellatospora koreensis sp nov., a novel actinomycete isolated from a gold-mine cave

A new actinomycete strain, LM 042(T), which was isolated from a gold-mine c ave in Kongju. Republic of Korea. is described by phenotypic and genotypic characters. The organism formed short chains of non-motile spores and globo se bodies from substrate mycelium. An aerial mycelium was absent. This orga nism was chemotaxonomically characterized by the presence of mesodiaminopim elic acid, rhamnose, xylose, glucose, mannose and ribose in whole-cell hydr olysates (a type II cell wall and a variant of sugar pattern D), a glycolyl type of muramic acid, DNA G+C content of 70.4 mol%, a type PII phospholipi d pattern (phosphatidylethanolamine as a diagnostic nitrogenous phospholipi d), a tetrahydrogenated menaquinone with 10 isoprene units as a major menaq uinone, and fatty acid profiles predominated by iso-branched hexadecanoic a cid, iso-branched pentadecanoic acid and heptadcenoic acid. A comparative a nalysis of 16S rDNA sequences indicated that this organism formed a distinc t clade within the evolutionary radiation of the family Micromonosporaceae and clustered with members of the genus Catellatospora. The 16S rDNA simila rity values between the isolate and its phylogenetic neighbours, the two su bspecies of Catellatospora citrea and Catellatospora tsunoense, were 95.0-9 5.2% and 94.9%, respectively. An equidistant relationship was observed amon g the isolate, Catellatospora ferruginea and all other members of the Micro monosporaceae genera (levels of similarity 93.0-94.0%). The combination of physiological, chemotaxonomic and DNA-DNA hybridization data supported that this organism is a novel species of the genus Catellatospora, for which th e name Catellatospora koreensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is LM 042(T) (= IMSNU 50729(T)).