novel actinobacterium, designated strain SG20T, was isolated from a Saharan soil sample
collected from Be´ni-isguen (Mzab), Ghardai¨a province, southern Algeria. The micro-organism
developed small roundish sporangia on aerial mycelium that were sessile or carried by very
short sporangiophores. The cell-wall peptidoglycan contained meso-diaminopimelic acid and the
whole-cell sugars comprised glucose, ribose and mannose, but madurose was not detected.
The predominant menaquinones were MK-9(H4), MK-9(H6) and MK-9(H2). The major fatty acids
were iso-C16 : 0 and C16 : 0.The phospholipids detected were diphosphatidylglycerol,
phosphatidylinositol, phosphatidylethanolamine and unknown lipids. The phenotypic and
chemotaxonomic characteristics of the novel strain resembled those of recognized members of the
genus Streptosporangium. Moreover, phylogenetic analysis based on a 16S rRNA gene sequence
generated from the strain identified its closest relative as Streptosporangium jomthongense BCC
53154T (98.5 % similarity), which produces single spores on aerial mycelium, but no sporangia.
In hybridization experiments, the DNA–DNA relatedness values recorded between strain SG20T
and S. jomthongense DSM 46822T fell well below 70 %. On the basis of phenotypic and
genotypic data, strain SG20T can be distinguished as representing a novel species of the
genus Streptosporangium, for which the name Streptosporangium saharense sp. nov. is
proposed. The type strain is SG20T (5DSM 46743T5CECT 8840T).