Nocardia beijingensis sp nov., a novel isolate from soil

The taxonomic status of a soil isolate. provisionally assigned to the genus Nocardia, was established following a polyphasic study. An almost complete sequence of the 16S rDNA of the strain was determined and aligned with ava ilable sequences for nocardiae and phylogenetic trees were inferred using f our tree-making algorithms. The organism was associated consistently with t he type strains of Nocardia brasiliensis and Nocardia farcinica in the neig hbour-joining analysis, albeit with low bootstrap values. It was also found to have chemotaxonomic and morphological properties consistent with its as signment to the genus Nocardia. The organism was readily separated from rep resentatives of other Nocardia species by a broad range of phenotypic prope rties. The name proposed for the novel species is Nocardia beijingensis sp. nov. The type strain is AS4.1521(T) (= IFO 16342(T) = JCM 10666(T)).