Saccharothrix stipae sp. nov., an actinomycete isolated from the rhizosphere of Stipa grandis

An actinomycete, strain D34T, was isolated from a soil sample collected from the rhizosphere of Stipa grandis at Yunwu Mountain in Ningxia, north-west China. Strain D34T showed highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to Saccharothrix espanaensis DSM 44229T (99.0 %), Saccharothrix texasensis NRRL B-16107T (98.7 %) and Saccharothrix variisporea NRRL B-16296T (98.6 %). The strain contained meso-diaminopimelic acid, alanine, glycine and glutamic acid as major cell-wall amino acids. Mannose, rhamnose and galactose were the characteristic whole-cell sugars. The fatty acid profile consisted predominantly of iso-C15 : 0, iso-C16 : 0, iso-C16 : 1, C17 : 1ω6c, anteiso-C17 : 0 and anteiso-C15 : 0. The phospholipid profile included phosphatidylethanolamine (typical of phospholipid pattern type II). Furthermore, a combination of some physiological and biochemical properties and low DNA–DNA relatedness values indicated that strain D34T was differentiated from members of closely related species. On the basis of these phenotypic, genotypic and chemotaxonomic data, strain D34T represents a novel species of the genus Saccharothrix, for which the name Saccharothrix stipae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is D34T ( = JCM 30560T = ACCC19714T).