Saccharopolyspora deserti sp. nov., a novel halotolerant actinobacterium isolated from a desert.

Strain SYSU D8010 was isolated from a desert sand sample collected in Saudi Arabia. The taxonomic position of the isolate was investigated by the polyphasic taxonomic approach. The isolate was found to be Gram-positive and aerobic. The strain was able to grow at 14-40 °C, pH 5.0-9.0 and in the presence of up to 22 % (w/v) NaCl. Strain SYSU D8010 contained meso-diaminopimelic acid as cell-wall diamino acid, and arabinose, fucose, galactose, glucose and rhamnose as the whole-cell sugars. The primary polar lipids were diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylinositol and phosphatidylinositolmannosides. Menaquinone MK-9(H4) was detected as the respiratory quinone; and anteiso-C17 : 0, iso-C16 : 0, iso-C15 : 0 and iso-C17 : 0 as the predominant fatty acids. Pairwise comparison of the 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that strain SYSU D8010 had a sequence similarity of 97.8 % to Saccharopolyspora halophila YIM 90500. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain SYSU D8010 was determined to be 69.9 mol%. Based on the analyses of the phenotypic, genotypic and phylogenetic characteristics, strain SYSU D8010 was determined to represent a novel species of the genus Saccharopolyspora, for which the name Saccharopolyspora deserti sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of the species is SYSU D8010 (=KCTC 39989=CPCC 204620).