A novel actinobacterium, designated strain NEAU-GS4T, was isolated from soil collected from Mount Song and characterised using a polyphasic approach. 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity studies showed that strain NEAU-GS4T belongs to the genus Streptomyces, being closely related to Streptomyces spectabilis JCM 4308T (98.8%), Streptomyces sclerotialus DSM 43032T (98.3%) and Streptomyces lasiicapitis 3H-HV17(2)T (98.0%). A multilocus sequence analysis based on five house-keeping genes (atpD, gyrB, rpoB, recA and trpB) also indicated that strain NEAU-GS4T should be assigned to the genus Streptomyces. The major menaquinones were identified as MK-9(H6), MK-9(H8) and MK-9(H4). The polar lipid profile was found to contain diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylmethylethanolamine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylinositolmannosides and an unidentified phospholipid. The major fatty acids were identified as anteiso-C15:0, iso-C16:0 and anteiso-C17:0. Moreover, DNA-DNA hybridization results and some phenotypic characteristics indicated that strain NEAU-GS4T can be clearly differentiated from its closely related species of the genus Streptomyces. Therefore, it is concluded that strain NEAU-GS4T represents a novel species of the genus of Streptomyces, for which the name Streptomyces monticola sp. nov. is proposed. The type stain is NEAU-GS4T (=CGMCC 4.7467T = DSM 105116T).
