A Gram-stain-positive, yellow-pigmented, catalase-positive and oxidase-negative, strictly aerobic actinobacterium, designated strain YIM 131853T, was isolated from lichen collected from the South Bank of the Baltic Sea. The novel strain was non-spore-forming, short rod-shaped and motile with a single polar flagellum. The strain could grow at 4-37 °C (optimum, 28 °C), at pH 4.0-12.0 (pH 6.0) and at 0-3 % (w/v) NaCl (1 %). The DNA G+C content of strain YIM 131853T based on the draft genome sequence was 68.3 mol%. Predominant cellular fatty acids (>10 %) were identified as anteiso-C15 : 0, anteiso-C17 : 0 and iso-C16 : 0. The polar lipid profile included diphosphatidylglycerol, dimannosyldiacylglycerol, three unknown glycolipids, two unknown phospholipids and one unknown lipid. Strain YIM 131853T had 2,4-diaminobutyric acid as the diagnostic cell-wall diamino acid, galactose and glucose as whole-cell sugars, and MK-10, MK-14, MK-13 and MK-12 as the major menaquinones. Although strain YIM 131853T exhibited a highest 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity (96.6 %) to Amnibacterium kyonggiense NBRC 109360T, phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that the strain formed a tight lineage with Naasia aerilata NBRC 108725T (96.5 % 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity), which was the only species of genus Naasia. Based on the results of phenotypic, chemotaxonomic and phylogenetic analyses, strain YIM 131853T should belong to the genus Naasia and represents a novel species of the genus Naasia, for which the name Naasia lichenicola sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is YIM 131853T (=CGMCC 4.7565T=NBRC 113605T).
Keywords: Lichen; Naasia; Naasia lichenicola sp. nov..