Abstract
Fifty cyanobacterial strains from different habitats(symbioses, soil, fresh and marine waters) belongingto the genus Nostoc were cultured and tested forbioactivity. Thirty-seven strains were isolated in ourlaboratory, the remaining were supplied by officialculture collections. All the organisms were grownunder controlled laboratory conditions. The biomasseswere lyophilised and extracted with ethanol:water toobtain a hydrophilic extract and then withdichloromethane:isopropanol to obtain a lipophilicextract. Both crude extracts were tested forantifungal (against Penicillium expansum andRhizoctonia solani) and antibacterial activity(against Agrobacterium vitis, Escherichiacoli and Staphylococcus epidermidis), and fortoxicity against Artemia salina nauplii.Twenty-four strains showed activity against at leastone of the target organisms. Bioactivity was equallydistributed between lipophilic and hydrophilicextracts, and was mostly directed against fungi (15strains) and Artemia nauplii (12 strains);antibacterial activity was less frequent (8 strains).The presence of bioactivity was independent of thestrain origin.
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Piccardi, R., Frosini, A., Tredici, M.R. et al. Bioactivity in free-living and symbiotic cyanobacteria of the genus Nostoc . Journal of Applied Phycology 12, 543–547 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008106715148
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008106715148