Rhodococcus canchipurensis sp nov., an actinomycete isolated from a limestone deposit site

A novel actinobacterial strain, MBRL 353(T), was isolated from a sample collected from a limestone quarry at Hundung, Manipur, India. Comparison of 16S rRNA gene sequences of strain MBRL 353(T) and other members of the genus Rhodococcus showed sequence similarities ranging from 95.5 to 98.2%, with strain MBRL 353(T) showing closest sequence similarity to Rhodococcus triatomae IMMIB RIV-085(T) (98.2%) and Rhodococcus equi DSM 20307(T) (97.2%). DNA-DNA hybridization results, however, revealed that DNA-DNA relatedness values between strain MBRL 353(T) and R. triatomae DSM 44892(T) (43.4 %) and R. equi DSM 20307(T) (33.4 %) were well below the 70% limit for species identification. Strain MBRL 353(T) contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid and galactose and arabinose in the cell wall. Mycolic acids were present. The major fatty acids Were C-16:0 (45.7 %), C-18:1 omega 9c (18.2 %) and 10-methyl C-18:0 (11.3%). The only menaquinone detected was MK-8(H-2), while the major polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylinositol mannoside and one unknown phospholipid. The G+C content of the genomic DNA was 69.2 mol%. The phenotypic and genotypic data showed that strain MBRL 353(T) merits recognition as a representative of a novel species of the genus Rhodococcus for which the name Rhodococcus canchipurensis sp. nov. is proposed; the type strain is MBRL 353(T) (=KCTC 19851(T)=JCM 17578(T)).