Myceligenerans crystallogenes sp. nov., isolated from Roman catacombs

1 Leibniz-Institut für Naturstoff-Forschung und Infektionsbiologie e. V., Hans-Knöll-Institut, Beutenbergstrasse 11a, 07745 Jena, Germany 2 DSMZ – Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen GmbH, Mascheroder Weg 1b, 38124 Braunschweig, Germany 3 Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiologia, CSIC, Apartado 1052, 41080 Sevilla, Spain 4 VTT Biotechnology, PO Box 1500, FI-02044 VTT, Finland Correspondence Ingrid Groth Ingrid.Groth{at}hki-jena.de Three xylan-degrading actinobacterial strains were isolated from different sampling sites in the Roman catacombs of Domitilla and San Callisto. The organisms showed morphological and chemotaxonomic properties such as peptidoglycan type A4 , L -lys– L -thr– D -Glu; whole-cell sugars (glucose, mannose and galactose); octa-, hexa- and tetrahydrogenated menaquinones with nine isoprene units; phosphatidylglycerol and diphosphatidylglycerol as the major phospholipids; anteiso-C 15 : 0 , iso-C 15 : 0 and iso-C 16 : 0 as the predominant fatty acids; and a DNA G+C content of 72 mol%. These features are consistent with affiliation of these isolates to the genus Myceligenerans . The three isolates shared a 16S rRNA gene similarity of 99·9 % and were most closely related to Myceligenerans xiligouense DSM 15700 T (97·9 % sequence similarity). The low level of DNA–DNA relatedness (about 14 %) and the differences in phenotypic characteristics between the novel strains and M. xiligouense DSM 15700 T justify the proposal of a novel species of the genus Myceligenerans , Myceligenerans crystallogenes sp. nov., with CD12E2-27 T (=HKI 0369 T =DSM 17134 T =NCIMB 14061 T =VTT E-032285 T ) as the type strain. Published online ahead of print on 30 September 2005 as DOI 10.1099/ijs.0.63756-0. The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain CD12E2-27 T (=HKI 0369 T ) is AY928181 . Tables showing the physiological test results for the strains in this study are available as supplementary material in IJSEM Online.