An actinomycete, designated MS426 T , the culture broth of which showed potent antimicrobial activity, was isolated from a deep-sea sediment sample of the South China Sea. An almostcomplete sequence of the 16S rRNA gene of strain MS426 T was determined and aligned with those of representatives of the family Micromonosporaceae available in public databases. Phylogenetic trees were inferred by using three algorithms. Strain MS426 T formed a branch adjacent to Verrucosispora lutea YIM 013 T in a

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... stinct cluster occupied only by strains of the genus Verrucosispora. Strain MS426 T was distinguishable from the type strains of the two described Verrucosispora species by using a combination of chemical and morphological markers and by DNA-DNA relatedness. On the basis of these genotypic and phenotypic differences, the novel antimicrobial strain with pharmaceutical potential represents a novel species, for which the name Verrucosispora sediminis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is MS426 T (5CGMCC 4.3550 T 5JCM 15670 T ). 3These authors contributed equally to this work. The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain MS426 T is EU870859. A scanning electron micrograph of strain MS426 T is available as supplementary material with the online version of this paper.