Isolation and characterization of bioactive compounds from marine bacteria

Abstract

With a huge volume of unexplored wealth, marine environment dazzles out to be a very good source, capable of answering many unsolved questions and a treasure of unresolved mysteries. In this work coastal water samples were collected from Thiruchendur, Thoothukudi and Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu. From these samples, organisms were isolated by spread plate technique using marine agar. About 21 bacterial isolates were isolated and were screened primarily through agar diffusion method, of which only 6 isolates exerted an inhibitory effect against the target organisms were selected for antimicrobial analysis. Their supernatants were used to study the antagonistic activity against target organisms (Salmonella typhi, Enterobacter sp., Pseudomonas sp., Streptococcus mutans, Staphylococcus epidermidis and S. aureus). Cell free extracts of two organisms Alteromonas sp. and Rhodopseudomonas sp. identified in the isolates were found antagonistic against all the test organisms. Both the supernatants were checked with Nuclear Magnetic Spectroscopy for characterizing the active factor. The cell free supernatant from the first one was suspected to contain the compound similar to Drechslerine A and the other supernatant was found suspected to contain the compound similar to that of cis-Sativenediol.