Agrococcus jejuensis sp. nov., isolated from dried seaweed.

A novel marine actinomycete, designated strain SSW1-48(T), was isolated from a dried seaweed sample collected from a beach in Jeju, Republic of Korea. Cells of the organism were non-motile, non-endospore-forming, Gram-positive and rod-shaped. Colonies were circular, smooth, translucent and yellow-coloured. The diagnostic diamino acid in the peptidoglycan was 2,4-diaminobutyric acid and the murein was of the acetyl type. Mycolic acids were absent. The predominant menaquinones were MK-10 and MK-9. The major fatty acids were anteiso-C(15 : 0) and iso-C(16 : 0). The G+C content of the DNA was 73.0 mol%. A neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that the isolate formed a distinct branch between Agrococcus lahaulensis and Agrococcus casei in the family Microbacteriaceae. The values for 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity between strain SSW1-48(T) and type strains of recognized Agrococcus species were in the range 95.5-97.5 % and those between this bacterium and other representatives of the family Microbacteriaceae were in the range 93.7-96.4 %. On the basis of the combined data from the phenotypic and phylogenetic analyses, strain SSW1-48(T) represents a novel species of the genus Agrococcus, for which the name Agrococcus jejuensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is SSW1-48(T) (=KCTC 19198(T)=JCM 14256(T)).