Agromyces albus sp. nov. is proposed for an aerobic, oxidase-and catalase-positive actinomycete that was isolated from the above-ground part of a plant (Androsace sp., in the family Primulaceae). The strain is characterized by white colonies, fragmenting hyphae that penetrate into agar media and chemotaxonomic properties that are typical of the genus Agromyces. Analysis of 16S rDNA sequences confirmed that the strain belongs to the genus Agromyces and revealed its close phylogenetic relationship with Agromyces ramosus. DNA-DNA pairing studies showed that the strain belongs to a separate genomic species; this is consistent with its distinction from other Agromyces species at the phenotypic level. The G+C content of the DNA was 69?0 mol%. The type strain is VKM Ac-1800The genus Agromyces was established by Gledhill & Casida (1969) for microaerophilic to aerobic, filamentous, branching, fragmenting, catalase-negative actinomycetes that showed a negative oxidase reaction and inhabited soil; it originally contained a single species, Agromyces ramosus. Later, strictly aerobic, catalase-and oxidase-positive and non-filamentous agromycetes were described (Zgurskaya et al., 1992;Suzuki et al., 1996;Takeuchi et al., 2001;Li et al., 2003). Members of the genus are characterized by B2c-type peptidoglycan [based on L-DAB (2,4-diaminobutyric acid) (Schleifer & Kandler, 1972)], the major isoprenoid quinone MK-12 and the predominant cellular fatty acids anteiso-C 15 : 0 , anteiso-C 17 : 0 and iso-C 16 : 0 (Gledhill & Casida, 1969;Zgurskaya et al., 1992;Suzuki et al., 1996;Sasaki et al., 1998;Takeuchi et al., 2001;Li et al., 2003). Currently, the genus harbours eight species and four subspecies with validly published names, which are presented in Table 1; they were all isolated from soil or the mangrove rhizosphere. In this work, we report the characterization of Agromyces albus sp. nov., which was isolated from the above-ground part of a plant (Androsace sp., in the family Primulaceae) collected at the seed-formation stage in the Central-Chernozem Biosphere Park, Belgorod region, Russia.For isolation of micro-organisms, the surface-unsterilized part of the plant (stem top with several leaves and inflorescence) was cut into pieces, added to 1 ml 0?85 % NaCl (w/v) and ground with a pestle. One drop of this suspension was plated onto modified corynebacterium agar that contained 5 g glucose, 3 g yeast extract, 5 g casein peptone, 2 g Casamino acids, 3 g beef extract, 5 g NaCl, 15 g agar, 100 ml skimmed milk and 900 ml distilled water (pH 7?2-7?4) and incubated for 3 weeks at room temperature (18-24 u C). Morphology and life cycle were studied in cultures grown on corynebacterium (CB) agar (Zgurskaya et al., 1992) by phase-contrast microscopy. Gram-reaction was tested by the rapid test with KOH (Ryu, 1938). Physiological and chemotaxonomic features were examined as described previously (Evtushenko et al., 2000). For chemotaxonomic study, shaken cultures had been grown in liquid CB medium and harvested at the exponential-growth phase...

Oral administration of autoantigens and allergens can delay or suppress clinical disease in experimental autoimmune and allergic disorders. However, repeated feeding of large amounts of the tolerogens is required over long periods and is only partially effective in animals systemically sensitized to the ingested antigen. Enhanced suppression of type 1 autoimmune diabetes insulitis and hyperglycemia was demonstrated in both naive and immune animals following oral inoculation with plant-based antigens coupled to the cholera toxin B subunit (CTB). Thus, plant-synthesized antigens linked to the CTB adjuvant, can enhance suppression of inflammatory TH1 lymphocyte-mediated autoreactivity in both naive and immune animals. To stimulate adjuvant-autoantigen fusion protein biosynthesis in the gut mucosae, the authors evaluated oral inoculation of juvenile non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice with recombinant vaccinia virus (rVV) expressing fusion genes encoding CTB linked to the pancreatic islet autoantigens proinsulin (INS) and a 55-kDa C-terminal peptide from glutamate decarboxylase (GAD55). Hyperglycemia in both rVV-CTB:: INS and rVV-CTB:: GAD inoculated mice was substantially reduced in comparison with the uninoculated mouse control. Oral inoculation with rVV carrying the CTB::INS fusion gene generated a significant reduction in insulitis. An increase in IgG1 in comparison with IgG2c antibody isotype titers in rVV-CTB::INS infected mice suggested possible activation of autoantigen specific Th2 lymphocytes. The experimental results demonstrate feasibility of using vaccinia virus oral delivery of adjuvanted autoantigens to the mucosae of prediabetic mice for suppression and therapy of type 1 autoimmune diabetes.

Keywords: serine pathway methylotrophs, Met/2j~/opi/a capsdata gen. nov., sp. nov. INTRODUCTIONThe group of aerobic Gram-negative asporogenous facultatively met hylo trop hic bacteria (met hylobacteria) having the serine pathway and capable of growth on a variety of reduced C, substrates, except methane. is very heterogeneous. However, so far only four of the previously described genera have been validly published : Hyphomicrohium, Methylobacterium, Aminobacter and Methylorhabdus. As known, the representatives of the genus Hyphornicrohium form hyphae and multiply by budding (Hirsch. 1984), the genus Methylobacterium was emended for the pink-pigmented facultative methylobacteria (PPFM) (Patt et al., 1976;Bousfield & Green, 1985). The genus Aminobacter was proposed for nonpigmented, budding, methylamine-utilizing bacteria unable to grow on methanol (Urakami et al., 1992) and the new genus Methylorhabdus was suggested for , 1995). Nevertheless, it seemed evident that a taxonomic structure of the serine pathway facultative methytobacteria should include some new taxa to cover their phenotypic and genotypic diversity. Previously, we described three novel strains of colourless facultative methylobacteria having an intermediate position between the genera Methylobacterium and Aminohacter and proposed the generic name Methylomicrobium for these strains Doronina & Trotsenko, 1992). Since the genus ' Methylomicrohiuni' (Govorukhina et al., 1989) has not been validated, this generic name was subsequently used for a group of Type I methanotrophs (Bowman et al., 1995). In view of the fact that our extended study of 'Methylo-~-2icrobiurn capsulatus showed that this organism did not belong to the genus Methylomicrobium (Bowman et al., 1995) it would be appropriate to place this organism in a new genus, for which we propose the name Methylopila. Our studies of seven non-pigmented strains of facultatively methylotrophic bacteria which utilize the serine pathway indicate that they should be placed in a single

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