Luteimicrobium album sp. nov., a novel actinobacterium isolated from a lichen collected in Japan, and emended description of the genus Luteimicrobium.

A novel Gram-stain-positive actinobacterium, designated RI148-Li105(T), was isolated from a lichen sample from Rishiri Island, Japan, and its taxonomic position was investigated by a polyphasic approach. 16S rRNA gene sequencing study indicated that strain RI148-Li105(T) was related to the type strain of Luteimicrobium subarcticum, with a similarity of 97.8%. Cells of strain RI148-Li105(T) exhibited a rod-coccus cycle. The diagnostic cell-wall diamino acid of this organism was lysine and the peptidoglycan type was found to be A4α. The predominant menaquinones were MK-8(H(2)) and MK-9(H(2)), and the major fatty acids were iso-C(16:0), C(17:1) ω9c and C(17:0). The DNA G+C content was 73.6 mol%. The major phenotypic characteristics of strain RI148-Li105(T) basically corresponded to those of the genus Luteimicrobium excluding the fatty acid composition. These results suggest that strain RI148-Li105(T) should be affiliated with the genus Luteimicrobium. Meanwhile, DNA-DNA hybridization and some phenotypic characteristics revealed that the strain differs from L. subarcticum. Therefore, strain RI148-Li105(T) represents a novel species of the genus Luteimicrobium, for which the name Luteimicrobium album sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Luteimicrobium album is RI148-Li105(T) (=NBRC 106348(T)=DSM 24866(T)).