Tirado Acevedo, Oscar

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    Characterization of microorganisms with carbohydrase activities from tropical ecosystems
    (2004) Tirado Acevedo, Oscar; Nadathur, Govind S.; College of Arts and Sciences - Sciences; Tosteson, Thomas R.; Nieves, Rafael; Aponte, Nilda; Department of Marine Sciences; Parés, Elsie I.
    Several microorganisms have been isolated from different tropical ecosystems (tropical rain forest, sea water, and marine sediments) from the island of Puerto Rico. These microorganisms were screened for carbohydrase activity using chromogenic substrates (amylose, pullulan, cellulose, dextran, arabinan, galactomannan, and xylan). The results indicate that 2 - 9 % of cultured organisms show carbohydrase activity. Bacterial isolates were identified by sequence analysis of the PCR amplified partial subunit rRNA sequence. NCBI’s database comparison of the most versatile strains gives a match with Bacillus sp., Staphylococcus sp., Halomonas sp., and a gamma proteobacterium, respectively. Growth curves indicate that all strains assayed can grow as well in at least one complex carbohydrate as in glucose. We have detected a high β- xylosidase activity from our Bacillus sp. strain crude enzyme preparation. Identification from isolated fungi indicates they belong to genus Aspergillus and Microsporium respectively. A yeast isolate was identified by D1/D2 domain of the large subunit (26S) ribosomal DNA sequence; it gives a match with Glomus sp. Our results show that tropical environments have potentially good sources of microorganisms with novel carbohydrases.