Streptomyces gulbargensis sp nov., isolated from soil in Karnataka, India

During the course of screening for industrially important microorganisms, an alkali-tolerant and thermotolerant actinomycete, strain DAS 131(T), was isolated from a soil sample collected from the Gulbarga region, Karnataka province, India. The strain was characterized by a polyphasic approach that showed that it belonged to the genus Streptomyces. Growth was observed over a wide pH range (pH 6-12) and at 45 degrees C. The 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain DAS 131(T) was deposited in the GenBank database under the accession number DQ317411. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that strain DAS 131(T) was most closely related to Streptomyces venezuelae ISP 5230(T) (AY999739) with a sequence similarity of 99.5% (8 nucleotide differences out of 1,477). Despite this very high sequence similarity, strain DAS 131(T) was phenetically distinct from S. venezuelae. The DNA relatedness between these strains was 54%, indicating that strain DAS 131(T) is a distinct genomic species. On the basis of phenetic and genetic analyses, strain DAS 131(T) is classified as a new species in the genus Streptomyces, for which we propose the name Streptomyces gulbargensis sp. nov.