Isolation and characterization of biotechnology relevant bacteria from marine environment

Abstract

Marine environment remained as largely unexplored source for researchers to discover marine microorganisms with novel properties. This study aims to isolate marine bacteria from the seashore of Desaru, Malaysia. Totally, six bacterial strains were successfully obtained and were identified by complete 16S rRNA sequencing. The characterizations of bacterial strains were performed based on morphological tests, Gram-staining, biochemical tests, and antibiotic sensitivity. The 16S rRNA sequence of D-2, D-4, D-7, D-15, D-31, and D-33 revealed a high identity of 97 to 99% with taxa belong to genera of Pseudomonas, Marinomonas, Exiquobacterium, Micrococcus, Pseudoalteromonas, and Shewanella respectively. Strain D-31 exhibited higher tolerance towards antibiotics kanamycin, ampicillin, and erythromycin while the growth of other strains were retarded by at least two of these antibiotics. We further characterized strain D-4 and D-31 that belonged to Marinomonas sp. and Pseudoalteromonas sp. Both genera are interesting as earlier researchers have discovered new antibacterial substances, industrial enzymes and unique secondary metabolites.