Dermacoccaceae

Abstract: Kytococcus sedentarius (ZoBell and Upham 1944) Stackebrandt et al. 1995 is the type strain of the species, and is of phylogenetic interest because of its location in the Dermacoccaceae, a poorly studied family within the actinobacterial suborder Micrococcineae. K. sedentarius is known for the production of oligoketide antibiotics as well as for its role as an opportunistic pathogen causing valve endocarditis, hemorrhagic pneumonia, and pitted keratolysis. It is strictly aerobic and can only grow when several amino acids are provided in the medium. The strain described in this report is a free-living, nonmotile, Gram-positive bacterium, originally isolated from a marine environment. Here we describe the features of this organism, together with the complete genome sequence, and annotation. This is the first complete genome sequence of a member of the family Dermacoccaceae and the 2,785,024 bp long single replicon genome with its 2639 protein-coding and 64 RNA genes is part of the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea project.

Abstract: Actinobacteria associated with insects represent one potentially rich source of novel natural products with antifungal activity. Here, we investigated the phylogenetic diversity and community composition of actinobacteria associated with ants using a combination of culture-dependent and -independent methods. Further, we assessed the antagonistic activity against phytopathogenic fungi and identified the secondary metabolites from isolates with bioactivity. A total of 416 actinobacterial isolates were obtained from three ant species (Camponotus japonicus, Lasius fuliginosus, and Lasius flavus) located in five nests. The largest amount of isolates were observed in the head samples. 16S rRNA gene sequencing showed that the isolates were diverse and belonged to ten genera within the phylum Actinobacteria, with Streptomyces and Micromonospora comprising the most abundant genera. High-throughput sequencing analyses revealed that the actinobacterial communities were more diverse and dominated by the families Nocardioidaceae, Nocardiaceae, Dermacoccaceae, Intrasporangiaceae, and Streptomycetaceae. In addition, 52.3% of the representative isolates had inhibitory properties against phytopathogenic fungi. Chemical analysis of one Streptomyces strain led to the discovery of two known compounds and one new compound. These results demonstrated that ant-derived actinobacteria represented an underexplored bioresource library of diverse and novel taxa that may be of potential interest in the discovery of new agroactive compounds.

Abstract: To investigate the diversity of culturable actinobacteria and further screen for microbial pharmaceutics, seven different media were chosen to isolate actinobacteria from 87 soil samples collected from Qinghai-Tibet plateau. A total of 1930 strains was isolated and identified to belong to 11 suborders, i.e., Actinopolysporineae, Corynebacterineae, Frankineae, Glycomycineae, Kineosporiineae, Micrococcineae, Micromonosporineae, Propionibacterineae, Pseudonocardineae, Streptomycineae and Streptosporangineae, and 16 families, i.e., Nocardioidaceae, Actinopolysporaceae, Actinosynnemataceae, Dermacoccaceae, Geodermatophilaceae, Glycomycetaceae, Kineosporiaceae, Microbacteriaceae, Micromonosporaceae, Nocardiaceae, Promicromonosporaceae, Propionibacteriaceae, Pseudonocardiaceae, Streptomycetaceae, Streptosporangiaceae and Thermomonosporaceae. A primary taxonomic study showed that at least 22 genera of actinobacteria were identified from the soil samples, among which ten isolates represented hitherto unknown species. The results showed that there was abundant actinobacterial species diversity in the soil samples from the Qinghai-Tibet plateau.

Abstract: Flexivirga alba gen. nov., sp. nov., an actinobacterial taxon in the family Dermacoccaceae