A new genus of the order Actinomycetales, Spirilliplanes gen. nov., with description of Spirilliplanes yamanashiensis sp. nov.

Actinomycete strain YU127-1T (T = type strain), which produces zoospores, was isolated from a soil sample. The aerial mycelium of this organism at maturity forms short chains of spores. The hyphae form coils, and sporangia are not observed. Strain YU127-1T contains glutamic acid, glucosamine, glycine, alanine, and meso-diaminopimelic acid in its cell wall (wall chemotype II), 3-O-methylmannose, mannose, xylose, and glucose as whole-cell sugars, meanaquinone 10(H4), and glycolyl cell wall polysaccharides and has a guanine-plus-cytosine content of 69.0 mol%. Mycolic acids are absent. Phosphatidylinositol and phosphatidylethanolamine are diagnostic phospholipids. The chemotaxonomic data, except for the lack of arabinose in the whole-cell sugars, indicate that this strain belongs to the family Micromonosporaceae. The morphological and physiological characteristics and chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic data for this strain differ from those of the previously described actinomycetes. We therefore propose a new genus, spirilliplanes, for this organism; the type species of the genus is Spirilliplanes yamanashiensis sp. nov., and the type strain of S. yamanashiensis is strain YU127-1 (= IFO 15828).