Streptomonospora litoralis sp. nov., a halophilic thiopeptides producer isolated from sand collected at Cuxhaven beach

Strain M2 T was isolated from the beach of Cuxhaven, Wadden Sea, Germany, in course of a program to attain new producers of bioactive natural products. Strain M2 T produces litoralimycin and sulfomycin-type thiopeptides. Bioinformatic analysis revealed a potential biosynthetic gene cluster encoding for the M2 T thiopeptides. The strain is Gram-stain-positive, rod shaped, non-motile, spore forming, showing a yellow colony color and forms extensively branched substrate mycelium and aerial hyphae. Inferred from the 16S rRNA gene phylogeny strain M2 T affiliates with the genus Streptomonospora. It shows 96.6% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to the type species Streptomonospora salina DSM 44593 T and forms a distinct branch with Streptomonospora sediminis DSM 45723 T with 97.0% 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity. Genome-based phylogenetic analysis revealed that M2 T is closely related to Streptomonospora alba YIM 90003 T with a digital DNA-DNA hybridisation (dDDH) value of 26.6%. The predominant menaquinones of M2 T are MK-10(H 6 ), MK-10(H 8 ), and MK-11(H 6 ) (> 10%). Major cellular fatty acids are iso-C 16:0, anteiso C 17:0 and C 18:0 10-methyl. The polar lipid profile consisted of diphosphatidylglycerol phosphatidyl glycerol, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, three glycolipids, two unknown phospholipids, and two unknown lipids. The genome size of type strain M2 T is 5,878,427 bp with 72.1 mol % G + C content. Based on the results obtained from phylogenetic and chemotaxonomic studies, strain M2 T (= DSM 106425 T = NCCB 100650 T ) is considered to represent a novel species within the genus Streptomonospora for which the name Streptomonospora litoralis sp. nov. is proposed.