Correspondence

Three actinomycete strains isolated from soils and one strain isolated from a patient with lung nocardiosis in 1999 and 2001 in Japan have been provisionally assigned to the genus Nocardia on the basis of morphological criteria. These isolates were further investigated to determine their specific taxonomic status. Detailed chemotaxonomic characterization and 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis of these isolates confirmed that they belong to the genus Nocardia. The 16S rRNA gene sequences of the four strains were most similar to that of Nocardia farcinica. However, the sequence similarity values between these four strains and N. farcinica were <98?9%. These four strains were susceptible to 5-fluorouracil, and they have the ability to decompose urea, which is a very characteristic trait. Furthermore, DNA–DNA relatedness data revealed that IFM 10311T, IFM 10312 and IFM 10313 comprise a single novel species of Nocardia, that IFM 10084T represents another novel species of Nocardia and that these two novel species could be distinguished from N. farcinica. The names Nocardia shimofusensis sp. nov. and Nocardia higoensis sp. nov. are proposed, with IFM 10311T (=NBRC 100134T=JCM 12122T=DSM 44733T) and IFM 10084T (=NBRC 100133T=JCM 12121T=DSM 44732T) as the respective type strains