Biodiversity and Screening of Moderately Halophilic Bacteria with Hydrolytic and Antimicrobial Activities from Yuncheng Salt Lake,China

1 Introduction Yuncheng Salt Lake is an old lake with a history of more than 5000 years,which locates in the margins of the central plains of China,with an area of about 130 km.It was an important resource of salt for human consumption from early times.Major chemicals in Yuncheng Salt Lake contain Na Cl,Na2SO4 and Mg SO4(Gao et al.2007).In recent years,some halophilic bacteria and archaea were

Effect of salinity on community structure and naphthalene dioxygenase gene diversity of a halophilic bacterial consortium

The aim of this study is to analyze the effect of salinity on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons （PAHs） biodegradation, community structure and naphthalene dioxygenase gene （ndo） diversity of a halophilic bacterial consortium with the denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis （DGGE） approach. The consortium was developed from oil-contaminated saline soil after enrichment for six times, using phenanthrene as the substrate. The prominent species in the bacterial consortium at all salinities were identified as halophilic bacteria Halomonas, Alcanivorax, Marinobacter, Idiomarina, Martelella and uncultured bacteria. The predominant microbes gradually changed associating with the saline concentration fluctuations ranging from 0.1% to 25% （w/v）. Two ndo alpha subunits were dominant at salinities ranging, from 0.1% to 20%. while not been clearly detected at 25% salinity. Consistently. the biodegradation occurred at salmltles rangmg from 0.1% to 20%, while no at 25% salinity, suggesting the two ndo genes played an important role in the degradation. The phylogenetic analysis revealed that both of the two ndo alpha subunits were related to the classic nab-like gene from Pseudomonas stutzeri AN10 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa PaK1, while one with identity of about 82% and the other one with identity of 90% at amino acid sequence level. We concluded that salinity greatly affected halophilic bacterial community structure and also the functional genes which were more related to biodegradation.

A Study of the Characteristics of Microorganisms for Effective Degradation of Marine Oil Spills

Four microorganism strains were isolated from coastal petroleum-polluted soil and sand samples of Bohai Sea oilfield; they were found to degrade marine oil spills effectively. The experimental results show that the degradation efficiency of crude oil with these four strains （XT-4, SZ-1-25, B-4-9, BS-3-12） is 95.97%, 96.01%, 97.99% and 98.99%, respectively, in their optimum conditions. The characteristics of bacterial biodegradation are investigated. The simulation biotreatment of oil-contaminated beach sand, with an initial oil content of 5,664mg/kg-dry-sand, shows that the residual oil content is 2,700 mg/kg-dry-sand and 2,679 mg/kg-dry-sand after 170 days＇ treatment with two bacteria （B-4-9, BS-3- 12）, respectively.

Biogeographical note on Antarctic microforae: Endemism and cosmopolitanism

This study deals with the biogeography of Antarctic microflora （Antarctica acts as best model to study microbial biogeography） such as cyanobacteria and selected halophiles with special emphasis on Halomonas variabilis and Bacillus licheniformis.Halophiles are known to be resistant not only to salt stress,but also to extreme temperature,pressure,and aridity and they are capable of surviving in harsh environments such as polar regions,deep-sea habitats,and deserts.Many microbes are known to be resistant to hostile environmental conditions,and are capable of surviving in harsh environments.Our group has isolated 444 strains belonging to 28 genera of halophiles from various environments around the world.The 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that many of the isolated strains from geographically distant habitats having different environmental conditions,were closely related to each other,with some strains possessing 100％ identical sequences.Organisms possessing survival mechanism such as spore formation are usually ubiquitous.The genus Halomonas is represented by potentially endemic strains and the ubiquitous H.variabilis,while spore-forming B.licheniformis showed cosmopolitan distribution.One potentially endemic （moderate endemicity that is regional and/or continental distribution） strain was reported from Syowa station,East Antarctica,and Mario Zucchelli station,West Antarctica,which are geographically separated by 3000 km.Moreover,15 strains having 100％ similarity with B.licheniformis were considered cosmopolitans.The results of this work provide support for the middle-ground model that some microbes have moderate endemicity and others have cosmopolitan distribution.These results will contribute to a greater understanding of microbial biogeography with special emphasis on Antarctica.