Isolation and Characterization of Actinomycetes from Mangrove Samples

Pooja Prasannan et al.,

Mangroves | Actinomycetes

Vol: 2; Iss: 9; Sep 16 | ISSN: 2454-5422

Mangroves are a group of plants that occur in the coastal intertidal zones of tropics and the subtropics. It is a unique ecosystem that is considered as a huge treasure-house of mangrove actinomycetes resources. Microorganisms of this unique system are also unique in several aspects. Among these, actinomycetes have gained special attention as they are producers of almost half of the discovered bioactive secondary metabolites, notably antibiotics, antitumor agents, immunosuppressive agents and enzymes. Mangroves are nutritionally versatile which affect the genetic diversity of microbes over there and therefore produce novel metabolites. It is difficult to isolate novel actinomycetes from this ecosystem because of abundance of identified organisms. The present study was conducted with the aim of isolating biologically important Actinomycetes from mangrove ecosystem for the production of bioactive products. For this initially water samples were collected from a mangrove ecosystem at Veli lake, Thiruvananthapuram. A total of 4 actinomycetes strains were isolated from the selected sample. They were partially characterized morphologically and biochemically.