Full Length Research Paper

Isolation of marine Streptomyces and the evaluation of its bioactive potential

Selvakumar Dharmaraj¹*, B. Ashokkumar² and K. Dhevendaran¹

¹Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, University of Kerala, Kariavattom campus, Trivandrum 695 581, India.

²Zoological Survey of India, Marine Biological Station, Santhome High Road, Chennai 600 028, India.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: biochem_selva@yahoo.com. Tel: +919626273315.

Accepted 12 November, 2009

   Abstract

Nearly ten isolates of Streptomyces were found to be associated with two species of sponges namely Mycale mytilorum (Annandale) and Tendania anhelans (Lieberkuhn).Among the ten isolates, four strains of white series were selected and characterized by conventional methods and assessed for their antagonistic activity against fish pathogens like Aeromonas hydrophila and Vibrio sp. All the strains showed inhibitory activity against these fish pathogens. The screening of antibacterial substances by the Streptomyces isolates proved the production of highly polyene nature compounds which were observed using criteria like thin layer chromatography (TLC) and spectral analysis. The results of the present investigation revealed that the sponges associated Streptomyces were found to be promising source of antibacterial bioactive substances. It concludes that development of appropriate fermentation and downstream processing technologies would bring out new classes of antibiotic leads.

Key words:  Antimicrobials, marine Streptomyces, marine sponges