BIOACTIVE POTENTIAL OF SPONGE ASSOCIATED BACTERIA -A PRELIMINARY STUDY

Author(s): Bavithra. H and Sathiyamurthy. K

Abstract: The rich diversity of marine bacteria associated with marine invertebrates, including sponges has received major attention in pharmaceutical industries due to high scope for novel bioactive metabolites. In this study, bacteria associated with the sponges were isolated and characterized. The bioactive metabolites produced by these bacteria were extracted with ethyl acetate, hexane and chloroform. The bioactivity of crude metabolites was screened by using well and disk diffusion method against bacterial pathogens. A total of 70 bacteria were isolated from six different types of sponges. All the isolates were characterized and identified up to genus level. The results indicated that out of 70 bacterial isolates, only five bacterial species exhibited inhibitory activity against the tested pathogens such as Bacillus sp., E. Coli, Salmonella sp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida albicans and Aspergillus flavus and the strains were named as SgM1, SgM2, SgM3, SgM4 and SgM5. Among these, the SgM3 strain was suspected as Micrococcus sp., strain based on biochemical analysis, and it showed high inhibitory activity against bacterial pathogens, such as Bacillus sp., (19 mm), Salmonella sp., (20 mm) and Pseudomonas aeruginosa (16 mm) and also against fungus Candida albicans (7mm) both in well and disk diffusion assay. The crude ethyl acetate extract of SgM3 showed Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) of 20 µg/ml against Bacillus sp., and Salmonella sp., whereas the MIC value of crude extract of SgM1 was 20 µg/ml against Bacillus sp., and 40 µg/ml against Aspergillus flavus fungal pathogen. The Minimum Bactericidal Concentration (MBC) was 1.56 ml against both bacterial and fungal pathogens. Further, the active compound was characterized by thin layer chromatography (TLC) technique and the Rf value was 0.65 which revealed its bioactive potential. The present study reports that the sponge associated bacteria had the ability to produce a novel bioactive compound that may be a promising candidate for the therapeutic and biomedical application.

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