Hatha, A A M; Rinoy, Varghese; Nishamol, S; Suchitra, R(Indian Society for Education and Environment, March , 2012)
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Abstract:
Actinomycetes are gram-positive, free-living, saprophytic bacteria widely distributed in soil, water and colonizing plants
showing marked chemical and morphological diversity. They are potential source of many bioactive compounds, which have
diverse clinical effects and important applications in human medicine. In the present work, we have studied some of the
physiological and biochemical characteristics of 36 actinomycete strains isolated from the shola soils of tropical montane
forest; a relatively unexplored biodiversity hotspot. Ability of actinomycetes isolates to ferment and produce acids from various
carbohydrate sources such as innositol, mannose, sorbitol, galactose, mannitol, xylose, rhamnose, arabinose, lactose and
fructose were studied. Almost all the carbon compounds were utilized by one or other actinomycete isolates. The most
preferred carbon sources were found to be xylose (94.44%) followed by fructose and mannose (91.66%). Only 41.76% of the
isolates were able to ferment lactose. The ability of actinomycetes isolates to decompose protein and amino acid differ
considerably. 72.22% of the isolates were able to decompose milk protein casein and 61.11% of the isolates decompose
tyrosine. Only 8.33% of the strains were able to decompose amino acid hypoxanthine and none of them were able to
decompose amino acid xanthine. Potential of the actinomycetes isolates to reduce esculin, urea and hippurate and to resist
lysozyme was also checked. 91.66% of the isolates showed ability to decompose esculin and 63.88% of the isolates had the
capacity to produce urease and to decompose urea. Only 25% of the isolate were able to decompose hippurate and 94.44%
showed lysozyme resistance
Description:
Indian J. Innovations Dev., Vol. 1, No. 3 (Mar 2012)
Hatha, A A M; Nishamol, S; Suchitra, R; Rinoy, Varghese(Vasile Goldis University Press, 2012)
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Abstract:
TThe invention of novel antibiotics and other bioactive microbial metabolites continues to be an
important aim in new drug discovery programmes. Actinomycetes have the potential to synthesize lots of diverse
biologically vigorous secondary metabolites and in the last decades actinomycetes became the most productive
source for antibiotics. Therefore in the present study we analyze the antibacterial activity of the actinomycetes
isolated from grassland soil samples of Tropical Montane forest. A total of 33 actinomycete strains isolated were
characterized and screened for antibacterial activities using well diffusion method against six specific pathogenic
organisms. Identification of the isolates revealed that the majority of them were belonging to Streptomycetes
followed by Nocardia, Micromonospora, Pseudonocardia, Streptosporangium, Nocardiopsis and
Saccharomonospora. Among the 33 isolates, Gr1 strain showed antagonistic activity against all checked
pathogens. Nine strains showed antibacaterial activity against Listeria, Vibrio cholera, Bacillus cereus,
Staphylococcus aureus and Salmonella typhi and only 2 strains (Gr1and Gr25) showed antagonism to E. coli.
The overall percentage of activity of actinomycetes isolates against each pathogenic bacterium was also
calculated. While 63.63% of the actinomycetes were antagoinistic against Listeria, Vibrio cholerae, and Bacillus
cereus, 60.6% of them were antagonistic to Staphylococcus aureus. Very few isolates (6.06%) showed
antibacterial activity against E. coli. In general most of the actinomycetes isolates were antagonistic to grampositive
bacteria such as Listeria, Bacillus and Staphylococcus than Gram-negative bacteria Vibrio cholerae, E.
coli and Salmonella
Description:
Studia Universitatis “Vasile Goldiş”, Seria Ştiinţele Vieţii
Vol. 22, issue 3, 2012, pp. 451-455