Phylogenetic diversity of culturable marine actinobacteria isolated from the Havelock island, the Andamans, India

Abstract

A decade, the excellent track records of the actinobacterial potential, the world microbiologist turned their attention is being paid to the isolation of novel actinobacteria for the diverse range of screening programs. In this context, present study was aimed at to investigate the phylogenetic diversity of culturable marine actinobacteria isolated from the coast of Havelock Island, the Andamans, India. Actinobacterial colonies were isolated from the sediments of the six stations of the Havelock island, using different media viz. Kuster's agar, Starch Casein agar, Actinomycetes isolation agar, Starch Casein nitrate agar and AV agar. Higher actinobacterial population density was recorded in Kuster's agar. A total of 19 morphologically distinct actinobacterial strains were subjected to identification using cultural, cell wall chemotypical, morphological, physiological and molecular (16S rDNA) characteristics; 18 out of 19 isolates belonged to Streptomyces and 1 isolate belonged to Actinoalloteichus. This study has led us to conclude that the coastal sediments of the Havelock island of the Andamans are good source for obtaining culturable marine actinobacteria. Isolation of such diverse marine actinobacteria from the marine sediments could yield novel candidates, a valuable source for various scientific and biotechnological applications and genes for their biosynthesis. Further research including molecular characterizations of the isolated strains are important to pursue their biotechnological importance and ecological roles.