ABSTRACT
The Actinobacteria are a major phylum in the bacterial domain. Growth of actinobacteria in an optimal medium supplemented with sucrose and glycine may aid lysis, though the concentrations may need to be optimized to prevent inhibition and premature lysis. Many actinobacteria are environmental including soil, rhizosphere, and endophytic organisms for example the genus Frankia responsible for symbiotic nitrogen fixation in nonleguminous plants. Many of the actinobacterial genomes in the databases are highly fragmented with a few to thousands of contigs. The family Geodermatophilaceae is distant from other actinobacterial clades and found in metagenomic studies of arid and hyperarid habitats. The chapter provides a model for a wide-ranging theoretical and practical phylogenetic and systematic analysis of members of an actinobacterial clade. The increasing number of publicly available actinobacterial whole genomes means that the sequencing of a lab strain under study is potentially leveraged by related strains already sequenced.
