Williamsia soli sp. nov., an actinobacterium isolated from soil at a thermal power plant in Yantai, China.

Strain C17T, a novel strain belonging to the phylum Actinobacteria, was isolated from a thermal power plant in Yantai, Shandong Province, China. Cells of strain C17T were Gram stain positive, aerobic, pink, non-motile and round with neat edges, showing optimum growth at 28 °C. Phylogenetically, strain C17T was a member of the class Actinobacteria, order Mycobacteriales, family Gordoniaceae. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequence comparisons revealed that the related strains were Williamsia faeni JCM 17784 T and Williamsia limnetica KCTC 19981 T with pairwise sequence similarity of 98.5% for both strains. According to the draft genome sequence, the DNA G + C content was 64.7%. The average amino acid identity (AAI), average nucleotide identity (ANI) and digital DNA-DNA hybridization (dDDH) values between genome sequences of strain C17T and the closest type strain W. faeni JCM 17784 T were 77.5, 77.9, and 20.7%, respectively. Predominant fatty acids were C16:0 (31.7%) and C18:1ω9c (26.8%). The major menaquinone was MK-9. The diagnostic phospholipids were phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), diphosphatidylglycerol (DPG), and phosphatidylinositol (PI). Therefore, the combined phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic data indicated that strain C17T was considered to represent a novel species of the genus Williamsia. Williamsia soli sp. nov. was proposed for strain C17T (= KCTC 49567 T = MCCC 1K04355T).