Antimicrobial Screening of Marine Endophytes and Epiphytes Isolated from Marine Algae of Kenyan Indian Ocean

Purity Kaaria^1, , Joseph Wakibia¹, Viviene Matiru¹, Mary Ndung’u² and Christine Bii³

¹Department of Botany, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, P.O.Box 62000-00200 Nairobi, Kenya

²Department of Chemistry, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, P.O.Box 62000-00200 Nairobi, Kenya

³Kenya Medical Research Institute-Centre for Microbiology, 54840-00200 Nairobi, Kenya

Cite this paper:
Purity Kaaria, Joseph Wakibia, Viviene Matiru, Mary Ndung’u and Christine Bii. Antimicrobial Screening of Marine Endophytes and Epiphytes Isolated from Marine Algae of Kenyan Indian Ocean. Journal of Applied & Environmental Microbiology. 2015; 3(3):70-74. doi: 10.12691/jaem-3-3-2

Abstract

Marine algae have been known to produce secondary metabolites used in the pharmaceutical industry to treat various human diseases. This study embarked on the isolation of microbes associated with the marine algae and explores their potential as sources of antimicrobial agents that can be used in the production of drugs to treat the emerging and re-merging resistant human pathogens. The associated microbes that is, endophytes and epiphytes were isolated from different red, green and brown marine algae species which were collected from Mkomani Island in Mombasa Kenya. Eight hundred and thirty isolates were isolated of which three hundred and six were endophytes while five hundred and twenty four were epiphytes. Antimicrobial screening showed that two hundred and thirty isolates (28%) exhibited antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25922, Escherichia Coli ATCC 25923 and Candida albicans ATCC 90028. Most isolates showed inhibition activity against Escherichia Coli (47%). Inhibition against Candida albicans was 33% whereas for Staphylococcus aureus was 21%. The results reveal that marine algae harbor microbes that are potential producers of antimicrobial compounds that need to be investigated further for their pharmaceutical and biotechnological potential.

Keywords:
marine microbes antimicrobial screening pathogens marine algae

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]	Rheinheimer G. Aquatic microbiology 4th edition.1992, Wiley; New York.
[2]	Fenical W., Jensen P.R. Developing a new resource for drug discovery: Marine actinomycete bacteria. Nat. Chem. Biol. 2006, 2, 666-673.
[3]	Carter B.K. Biomedical potential of marine natural products. Biosci. 1996, 46:271-286.
[4]	Faulkner J. Chemical riches from the oceans. Chemistry in Britain. 1995, 31(9): 680 684.
[5]	Ganesh Babu T.P., Nithyanand E., Kannapiran E., Veera Ravi and Karutha Pandian S.. Molecular identification of bacteria associated with the coral reef ecosystem of Gulf of Mannar marine Biosphere Reserve using 16s rRNA sequences. Marine Bioscience Research. 2004, 47-53.
[6]	Cox S., Abu-Ghannam N. and Gupta S. An assessment of the antioxidant and antimicrobial activity of six species of edible Irish seaweeds. Int. Food Res. J. 2010, 17: 205-220.
[7]	Del Val A.G, Platas G., Basilio A., Gorrochategui J., Suai I., Vicente F., Portillo E., del Rio M.J., Reina G.G., Pelaez F.. Screening of antimicrobial activities in red, green and brown macroalgae from Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain). Int. Microbiol. 2001, 4: 35-40.
[8]	Solomon R.D.J. and Santhi V.S. Purification of bioactive natural product against human microbial pathogens from marine seaweed Dictyota acutiloba, J. Ag. World J. Microbiol. Biotechnol. 2008, 24: 1747-1752.
[9]	National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards Performance standards for antimicrobial disc susceptibility test 8th edition. 2003, M2-A8, NCCLS, Wayne, PA.
[10]	AL-Haj N.A., Mashan N.I., Mariana N., Shamsudin M.N., Mohamad H., Vairappan C.S. and Sekawi Z. Antibacterial Activity of Marine Source Extracts Against Multidrug Resistance Organisms. Am. J. Pharmacol. Toxicol. 2010, 5 (2): 95-102.
[11]	Kolanjinathan K. and Stella D. Antibacterial activity of marine macro algae against human pathogens. Recent Res. Sci. Technol. 2009, 1(1): 20-22.
[12]	Gunatilaka A.A.L. Natural products from plant-associated microorganisms: Distribution, structural diversity, bioactivity and implication of their occurrence. Journal of Natural Products. 2006, 69: 509-526.
[13]	Jasti S., Sieracki M.E., Poulton N., Giewat M.W. and J.N., Rooney-Varga. Phylogenetic diversity and specificity of bacteria closely associated with Alexandrium spp. and other phytoplankton. Applied Environmental Microbiology. 2005, 71 (7): 3483-3494.
[14]	Penesyan, A., Kjelleberg S. and Egan S. Development of novel drugs from marine surface associated microorganisms, Marine Drugs. 2010, 8: 438-459.
[15]	Mostafa M., El-Sheekh., Mohamed M., Gharieb. , Sabha M., El-Sabbagh, Walaa T., Hamza. Antimicrobial Efficacy of Some Marine Macroalgae of Red Sea International Journal of Microbiology and Immunology Research. 2014, Vol.3 (3), pp. 021-028.
[16]	Taskin E., Ozturk M., Kurt O. Antibacterial activities of some marine algae from the Aegean Sea (Turkey). Afr. J. Biotechnol. 2001, 6: 2746-2751.
[17]	Tuney I., Cadirci B.H., Unal D., Sukatar A. Antimicrobial activities of the extracts of marine algae from the coast of Ural (Izmir, Turkey). Turk J Biol. 2006, 30: 171-175.
[18]	Demirel Z, Yilmaz-Koz F.F., Karabay-Yavasoglu U.N., Ozdemir G. and Sukatar A. Antimicrobial and antioxidant activity of brown algae from the Aegean Sea, J. Serb. Chem. Soc. 2009, 74 (6): 619-628.
[19]	Ibtissam C, Hassane R, José M.L, Francisco D.S.J, Antonio G.V.J, Hassan B, Mohamed K. Screening of antibacterial activity in marine green and brown macroalgae from the coast of Morocco. Afr.J. Biotechnol. 2009, 8(7): 1258-1262.
[20]	Tortora G.J, Funke B.R. and Case C.L. Microbiology: An Introduction. Benjamin Cummings. 2001, San Francisco, 88.
[21]	Kandhasamy M. and Arunachalam K.D. Evaluation of in vitro antibacterial property of seaweeds of southeast coast of India. Afr. J. Biotechnol. 2008, 7(12): 1958-1961.
[22]	Kolanjinathan K., Ganesh P., Govindarajan M. Antibacterial activity of ethanol extracts of seaweeds against fish bacterial pathogens, European Rev. Med. Pharmacol. Sci. 2009, 13: 173-177.
[23]	Cabrita M.T, Vale C., Router A.P. Halogenated compounds from marine algae. Mar. Drugs. 2010, 8:2301-2317.
[24]	Pereira R.C., Teixeira V.L. Sesquiterpenos da alga marinha Laurencia Lamouroux (Ceramiales, Rhodophyta). Significado ecológico. Química Nova, São Paulo. 1999, v.22, p.369-373.