2 research outputs found
Cultivable psychrotolerant yeasts associated with Antarctic marine sponges
Unlike filamentous fungi and bacteria, very
little is known about cultivable yeasts associated with
marine sponges, especially those from Antarctic seas.
During an expedition to King George Island, in the Antarctica,
samples of 11 marine sponges were collected by
scuba-diving. From these sponges, 20 psychrotolerant yeast
isolates were obtained. Phylogenetic analyses of D1/D2
and ITS rRNA gene sequences revealed that the marine
ascomycetous yeast Metschnikowia australis is the predominant
organism associated with these invertebrates.
Other species found belonged to the Basidiomycota phylum:
Cystofilobasidium infirmominiatum, Rhodotorula
pinicola, Leucosporidiella creatinivora and a new yeast
from the Leucosporidiella genus. None of these yeasts have
been previously associated with marine sponges. A
screening to estimate the ability of these yeasts as producers
of extracellular enzymatic activities at several pH
and temperature conditions was performed. Several yeast
isolates demonstrated amylolytic, proteolytic, lipolytic or
cellulolytic activity, but none of them showed xylanolytic
activity under the conditions assayed. To our knowledge, this work is the first description of cultivable yeasts associated
with marine sponges from the Antarctic sea.This work was supported by Instituto Anta´rtico
Chileno (INACH) grant G_06-10, FONDECYT grant 11090192,
‘‘Programa Bicentenario de Ciencia y Tecnologı´a’’ (Chile) project
PDA13, and DICYT-USACH