Effects of Gelling Agent and Extracellular Signaling Molecules on the Culturability of Marine Bacteria.

ABSTRACT: Only 1% of marine bacteria are currently culturable using standard laboratory procedures, and this is a major obstacle for our understanding of the biology of marine microorganisms and for the discovery of novel microbial natural products. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate if improved cultivation conditions, including the use of an alternative gelling agent and supplementation with signaling molecules, improve the culturability of bacteria from seawater. Replacing agar with gellan gum improved viable counts 3- to 40-fold, depending on medium composition and incubation conditions, with a maximum of 6.6% culturability relative to direct cell counts. Through V4 amplicon sequencing we found that culturable diversity was also affected by a change in gelling agent, facilita

SUBMITTER: Rygaard AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5394321 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature