Phycicoccus bigeumensis sp nov., a mesophilic actinobacterium isolated from Bigeum Island, Korea

An actinomycete strain, designated MSL-03(T), was isolated from a soil sample collected from Bigeum Island in the Republic of Korea. The coccoid cells of the organism were Gram-positive and non-motile and did not form endospores. The colonies were yellow, small, circular with entire margins and contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid in the peptidoglycan. The major menaquinone was MK-8(H-4). The polar lipids detected were diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylglycerol. The major fatty acids were iso-C-15:0, iso-C-16:0, C-17:0, anteiso-C-15:0, 10-methyl C-17:0, iso-C-14:0 and C-17:1 omega 8c. The DNA G + C content was 73.4 mol%. Phylogenetic analyses based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence positioned strain MSL-03(T) in a clade comprising Phycicoccus jejuensis KSW2-15(T) and Phycicoccus dokdonensis DS-8(T). The organism showed the highest level of sequence similarity with respect to P. dokdonensis DS-8(T) (99.58% over 1424 nt), with differences in 64 positions out of 1488. The levels of DNA-DNA relatedness with its closest neighbours (<70%) showed that the isolate represents a distinct genomic species. On the basis of the phenotypic and genotypic results, strain MSL-03(T) represents a novel species of the genus Phycicoccus, for which the name Phycicoccus bigeumensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is strain MSL-03(T) (=KCTC 19266(T) =DSM 19264(T)).