Amycolatopsis nigrescens sp. nov., an actinomycete isolated from a Roman catacomb

1 Leibniz-Institut für Naturstoff-Forschung und Infektionsbiologie e.V., Hans-Knöll-Institut, Beutenbergstrasse 11a, 07745 Jena, Germany 2 Institute of Biological Sciences (Microbiology), Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 3 Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiologia, CSIC, Apartado 1052, 41080 Sevilla, Spain 4 Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH, Industriepark Hoechst, 65926 Frankfurt (Main), Germany 5 Division of Biology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK Correspondence Ingrid Groth Ingrid.Groth{at}hki-jena.de The taxonomic status of two actinomycetes isolated from the wall of a hypogean Roman catacomb was established based on a polyphasic investigation. The organisms were found to have chemical and morphological markers typical of members of the genus Amycolatopsis . They also shared a range of chemical, molecular and phenotypic markers which served to separate them from representatives of recognized Amycolatopsis species. The new isolates formed a branch in the Amycolatopsis 16S rRNA gene sequence tree with Amycolatopsis minnesotensis NRRL B-24435 T , but this association was not supported by a particularly high bootstrap value or by the product of the maximum-parsimony tree-making algorithm. The organisms were distinguished readily from closely related Amycolatopsis species based on a combination of phenotypic properties and from all Amycolatopsis strains by their characteristic menaquinone profiles, in which tetra-hydrogenated menaquinones with 11 isoprene units predominated. The combined genotypic and phenotypic data indicate that the isolates merit recognition as representing a novel species of the genus Amycolatopsis . The name proposed for this novel species is Amycolatopsis nigrescens sp. nov., with type strain CSC17Ta-90 T (=HKI 0330 T =DSM 44992 T =NRRL B-24473 T ). The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers for the 16S rRNA gene sequences of strains CSC17Ta-90 T and CSC17Ta-84 are respectively DQ486888 and DQ486887 . A table giving the cellular fatty acid compositions of strains CSC17Ta-90 T and CSC17Ta-84 and A. minnesotensis NRRL B-24435 T is available as supplementary material in IJSEM Online.