Agromyces archimandritae sp. nov., isolated from the cockroach Archimandrita tessellate

A Gram-stain-positive bacterial strain, designated G127AT(T), was isolated as soft small white colonies from the hindgut of the cockroach Archimandrita tesselata. Examination of the complete 165 rRNA sequence mapped the strain to the genus Agromyces. The type strain with the highest pairwise similarity was Agromyces marinus H23-8(T) (97.3%). The genome of G127AT(T) was sequenced by a combination of Illumina and Nanopore methods and consisted of a single circular DNA molecule with a size of 3.45 Mb. The DNA G+C content was 71.3 mol%. A phylogenomic tree based on conserved single copy housekeeping genes, placed G127AT(T) among the ancestral species of the genus Agromyces, and only Agromyces atrinae P27(T) was found to diverge earlier than G127AT(T). Genome distance metrics average nucleotide identity (ANI) (76-78%) and digital DNA-DNA hybridization (dDDH) (20.2-21.5%) of the isolate against available genomes of several type strains of species of the genus Agromyces indicated that G127AT(T) represented a previously undescribed species of the genus Agromyces. Morphological, physiological and biochemical characteristics, including lipid profile, cellular fatty acids and peptidoglycan type were in accordance with usual attributes of members of the genus Agromyces. The novel isolate could be differentiated from the most closely related species by extracellular expression of acid and alkaline phosphatases, trypsin and a-chymotrypsin, and utilization of L-arabinose and salicin as sole carbon sources. On the basis of the combined genomic and phenotypic features, isolate G127AT(T) (=DSM 111850(T)=LMG 32099(T)) is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Agromyces, for which we propose the name Agromyces archimandritae sp. nov.

Automated summary

A novel Gram-stain-positive bacterial species, designated Agromyces archimandritae sp. nov., was isolated from the hindgut of the cockroach Archimandrita tesselata. The genomic and phenotypic analysis revealed that G127AT(T) represents a previously undescribed species of the genus Agromyces.