Streptomyces atacamensis sp. nov., isolated from an extreme hyper-arid soil of the Atacama Desert, Chile

Rakesh Santhanam, Chinyere K. Okoro, Xiaoying Rong, Ying Huang, Alan T. Bull, Hang-Yeon Weon, Barbara A. Andrews, Juan A. Asenjo, Michael Goodfellow

¹School of Biology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK

²State Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, PR China

³Department of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NJ, UK

⁴Korean Agricultural Culture Collection, Agricultural Microbiological Team, National Academy of Agricultural Science, Rural Development Administration, Suwon 441-707, Republic of Korea

⁵Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Chile, Beauchef 850, Santiago, Chile

Correspondence
M. Goodfellow m.goodfellow{at}ncl.ac.uk

International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology 2012; 62(Pt 11):2680–2684 · https://doi.org/10.1099/ijs.0.038463-0

Abstract

The taxonomic position of a Streptomyces strain isolated from an extreme hyper-arid soil sample collected from the Atacama Desert was determined using a polyphasic approach. The strain, isolate C60^T, had chemical and morphological features typical of members of the genus Streptomyces and formed a distinct phyletic line in the Streptomyces 16S rRNA gene tree, together with the type strain of Streptomyces radiopugnans. The two strains were distinguished readily using a combination of phenotypic properties and by a DNA–DNA relatedness value of 23.17 (±0.95) %. On the basis of these genotypic and phenotypic data, it is proposed that isolate C60^T ( = CGMCC 4.7018^T = KACC 15492^T) be classified in the genus Streptomyces as Streptomyces atacamensis sp. nov.