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Isolation and Characterization of Agar-Degrading Endophytic Bacteria from Plants

Current Microbiology volume 70, pages 275–281 (2015)Cite this article

Abstract

Agar is a polysaccharide extracted from the cell walls of some macro-algaes. Among the reported agarases, most of them come from marine environment. In order to better understand different sources of agarases, it is important to search new non-marine native ones. In this study, seven agar-degrading bacteria were first isolated from the tissues of plants, belonging to three genera, i.e., Paenibacillus sp., Pseudomonas sp., and Klebsiella sp. Among them, the genus Klebsiella was first reported to have agarolytic ability and the genus Pseudomonas was first isolated from non-marine environment with agarase activity. Besides, seven strains were characterized by investigating the growth and agarase production in the presence of various polysaccharides. The results showed that they could grow on several polysaccharides such as araban, carrageenan, chitin, starch, and xylan. Besides, they could also produce agarase in the presence of different polysaccharides other than agar. Extracellular agarases from seven strains were further analyzed by SDS-PAGE combined with activity staining and estimated to be 75 kDa which has great difference from most reported agarases.

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Acknowledgments

We would thank Shanpan Lai for his help in identifying plants. This work was supported by National twelfth five-year science and technology support program (2011BAD14B05, 2013BAD10B01, and 2014BAD02B02), and Sichuan Science and Technology Bureau (2012GZ0008, 2013GZ0058, and 2014GZX0005, 2014GXZ0005, 2013JCPT003). The manuscript does not contain clinical studies or patient data.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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  1. Microbiology and Metabolic Engineering Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Wangjiang Road 29#, Chengdu, 610064, Sichuan, People’s Republic of China

    Tao Song, Weijia Zhang, Congchong Wei, Tengfei Jiang, Hui Xu, Yi Cao, Yu Cao & Dairong Qiao

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  1. Tao Song
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  2. Weijia Zhang
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  7. Yu Cao
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Correspondence to Yu Cao or Dairong Qiao.

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Tao Song and Weijia Zhang are the co-first authors. Yu Cao and Dairong Qiao are the co-corresponding authors.

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Song, T., Zhang, W., Wei, C. et al. Isolation and Characterization of Agar-Degrading Endophytic Bacteria from Plants. Curr Microbiol 70, 275–281 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-014-0713-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-014-0713-6

Keywords

  • Sole Carbon Source
  • Mineral Salt Medium
  • Endophytic Bacterium
  • Activity Staining
  • Single Carbon Source