Kalaivani R, Sukumaran V
Marine bacteria have many unexploited potential for novel products with a huge variability in structure and biological activity. Polyhydroxybutyrates are biodegradable thermo polyesters which are synthesized by many bacteria under stress conditions they are reported to produce biopolymers like poly-β-hydroxybutyrate (PHB), which can be produced intracellularly as carbon and energy reserves. In this present study, five PHB producing bacterial colonies were isolated from the marine soil collected from the village Karankura, Thanjavur district. However only one bacterial colony is selected among others based on maximum PHB yield (0.701g/L).Bacteria from this colony was characterized by morphological, biochemical and optimization and identified as Saccharococcus thermophilus. The maximum PHB yield was recorded under the dry weight basis with different agro industrial wastes as the sole carbon source at PH 7 and temperature 50oC for 72h. Among the carbon sources and nitrogen used, molasses and ammonium sulphate yield more PHB yield respectively. However, acridine orange stained cells showed the presence of large quantities of granules in the cell cytoplasm when viewed under fluorescent microscope. The extracted polymer was compared with the standard PHB and was confirmed to be PHB using FTIR analysis.
