Kineococcus endophytica sp. nov., a novel endophytic actinomycete isolated from a coastal halophyte in Jiangsu, China.

A novel Gram-positive, motile, non-spore-forming coccus-shaped bacterial strain, designated KLBMP 1274(T), was isolated from a halophytic plant (Limonium sinense) collected from the coastal region of Nantong, Jiangsu Province, in east China. Phylogenetic analyses based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence showed that strain KLBMP 1274(T) belongs to the genus Kineococcus and is closely related to Kineococcus rhizosphaerae RP-B16(T) (98.72 %), Kineococcus aurantiacus IFO 15268(T) (98.71 %), Kineococcus radiotolerans SRS30216(T) (98.69 %) and Kineococcus gynurae KKD096(T) (97.33 %). The 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity to other species of the genus Kineococcus was <97 %. The cell wall contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as the diagnostic diamino acid, with arabinose and galactose as the characteristic sugars. The predominant menaquinone was MK-9(H(2)). The polar lipids were found to be diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylinositol mannosides, an unknown phospholipid, an unknown glycolipid, and three unknown lipids. Major cellular fatty acids were found to be anteiso-C(15: 0) and iso-C(14: 0). The chemotaxonomic data for strain KLBMP 1274(T) were typical of the genus Kineococcus. The total DNA G+C content was 73.4 mol %. DNA-DNA relatedness and differential phenotypic data demonstrated that strain KLBMP 1274(T) was clearly distinguished from all closely related species of the genus Kineococcus. Thus, strain KLBMP 1274(T) represents a novel species of the genus Kineococcus, for which the name Kineococcus endophytica sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is KLBMP 1274(T) (=KCTC 19886 (T) = NBRC 108674(T)).