Culturable Bacterial Isolates from Arctic Soil shows High Biotechnological Potential

Abstract

Polar microbiology remains as the most fascinating area of research which mainly focuses on exploration of psychrophilic organisms for having their cold-active enzymes of biotechnological potential. In this study, we have explored a culturable bacterial community and isolated 27 bacterial isolates with a different morphology from an unexplored site of Arctic region, for the possibility of identifying various active biomolecules. Screening of various isolates in a culture dependent manner helped us to identify strains capable of producing extracellular enzymes. The optimal growth parameters of most of the isolates are ranges between 18-22°C temperature, 3-5 days of incubation, 6-9 pH, and 3-5% (w/v) NaCl in LB media. It has also been found that among these isolates, 63% are able to produce lipase, 17% amylase, 7% xylanase and 7% isolates have responded for phosphatase activity but there are no isolates found for gelatinase and cellulase production ability. In addition, few isolates can also produce secretory protease, urease, β-galactosidase, etc. 16SrRNA gene sequence-based phylogeny revealed that the isolates belong to the genera of Psychrobacter, Planococcus, Halomonas, Arthrobacter, Oceanisphaera, Marinbacter, Pseudomonas, Algoriphagus. Strikingly, none of the Arctic isolates showed resistance towards commonly used antibiotics which indicates that the unexplored habitat is devoid of antibiotic exposure and so does the rise of antimicrobial resistance. The structure-function relationship of the isolated bioactive compounds from these isolates are the major focus of future research.

Keywords

• psychrotrophs
• arctic
• community analysis
• polar microbiology
• lipase
• pigment
• cold-active enzymes