Six novel Arthrobacter species isolated from deteriorated mural paintings

1 Vakgroep BFM WE10V, Laboratorium voor Microbiologie, Universiteit Gent, K. L. Ledeganckstraat 35, B-9000 Gent, Belgium 2 DSMZ – Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen, Mascheroder Weg 1b, D-38124 Braunschweig, Germany 3 BCCM/LMG Bacteria Collection, K. L. Ledeganckstraat 35, B-9000 Gent, Belgium Correspondence Jeroen Heyrman Jeroen.Heyrman{at}UGent.be A group of 21 bacterial strains was isolated from samples of biofilm formation in the Servilia tomb (necropolis of Carmona, Spain) and the Saint-Catherine chapel (castle at Herberstein, Austria). A polyphasic taxonomic study of these isolates, including morphological, biochemical and chemotaxonomic characterization, rep-PCR fingerprinting, 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, DNA base ratio and DNA–DNA relatedness studies, allocated them to the genus Arthrobacter . The isolates represent six novel species, for which the names Arthrobacter castelli sp. nov., Arthrobacter monumenti sp. nov., Arthrobacter parietis sp. nov., Arthrobacter pigmenti sp. nov., Arthrobacter tecti sp. nov. and Arthrobacter tumbae sp. nov. are proposed. The respective type strains are LMG 22283 T (=DSM 16402 T ), LMG 19502 T (=DSM 16405 T ), LMG 22281 T (=DSM 16404 T ), LMG 22284 T (=DSM 16403 T ), LMG 22282 T (=DSM 16407 T ) and LMG 19501 T (=DSM 16406 T ). The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the 16S rRNA gene sequences of A. castelli LMG 22283 T , A. pigmenti LMG 22284 T , A. tecti LMG 22285, A. tecti LMG 22282 T , A. parietis LMG 22281 T , A. mysorens LMG 16219 T , A. viscosus LMG 16473 T , A. tumbae LMG 19501 T and A. monumenti LMG 19502 T are AJ639826 –AJ639832, AJ315069 and AJ315070 , respectively. A figure showing phylogenetic positions of representative novel isolates and Arthrobacter species based on neighbour-joining of 16S rRNA gene sequences and details of DNA–DNA relatedness values and fatty acid profiles of the novel taxa are available as supplementary material in IJSEM Online.