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BIOPROSPECTING OF ACTINOBACTERIA FROM MANGROVE AND ESTUARINE SEDIMENTS FOR ANTIFOULING COMPOUNDS

Venugopa Gopikrishnan, Raasaiyah Pazhanimurugan, Thangavel Shanmugasundaram, Manikkam Radhakrishnan and Ramasamy Balagurunathan

The problems associated with environmental biofouling and the limitation of currently available antifouling compounds has intensified the search for novel eco-friendly antifouling compounds from new sources. The present study reports bioprospecting of culturable actinobacteria from less explored marine ecosystems against biofouling bacteria. Fifty five bacterial isolates were recovered from fouling samples collected from Muttom, Parangipettai, Nagapattinam and Ennore coastal areas. Morphologically distinct isolates were phenotypically characterized. The isolates were belongs to species of the genus Bacillus, Aeromonas, Micrococcus, Alcaligenes, Lactobacillus, Staphylococcus, Pseudomonas and Kurthia. Biofilm forming capacity of all the isolates evaluated by adopting plate as well as tube method. Out of 55 bacterial isolates, 25 isolates produced positive results for biofilm formation in which the species belongs to the genus Staphylococcus, Micrococcus, Vibrio and Alcaligenes were identified as strong biofilm producers. For the isolation of potential antifouling compounds, totally 50 actinobacterial isolates were recovered from mangrove and estuarine sediment samples collected from Parangipettai and Pitchavaram coastal areas, Tamil Nadu and were phenotypically characterized. In agar plug method, 42 out of 50 actinobacterial isolates inhibited one/more number of biofouling bacteria tested. Two actinobacterial isolates viz., strain PM33 and the strain PE7 showed promising activity against maximum number of biofouling bacteria tested. Isolation of bioactive metabolites from both the actinobacterial strains will leads to the development of promising antifouling candidates