Growth and pigmentation in Sphingobacterium antarcticus,a psychrotrophic bacterium from Antarctica |
| |
Authors: | Sarita Chauhan S. Shivaji |
| |
Affiliation: | (1) Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology, Uppal Road, 500007 Hyderabad, India;(2) Present address: Department of Biochemistry, State University of New York at Buffalo, 14214 Buffalo, NY, USA |
| |
Abstract: | Sphingobacterium antarcticus, a yellow pigmented psychrotrophic bacterium from Antarctica exhibited enhanced pigmentation with increasing temperatures of incubation. This behavior was opposite to mesophilic Sphingobacterium in which pigmentation was reduced upon raising temperatures. The UV-visible spectrum of the crude pigment was characteristic of carotenoids and the pigment gave negative tests for flexirubins. Diphenylamine (DPA), a standard biochemical blocker of carotenoid biosynthesis reduced the growth of broth cultures when grown at extremes of the optimum temperature. Mutants defective in pigmentation were capable of growing between 1–31°C suggesting that pigmentation does not play any role in adapting the bacterium to the psychrotrophic growth temperature. On the other hand, our results suggest that DPA, which is known to block desaturation reactions in the carotenoid biosynthesis pathway may be affecting other desaturation reactions within the bacterium thereby causing reduced growth at extreme temperatures. |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|