ENDOPHYTIC BACTERIA FROM LEAVES OF HALOPHYTE AND OTHER SALT TOLERANT PLANT SPECIES FROM COASTAL GUJARAT

Sanjay Arora, Purvi N. Patel, G.G. Rao and R. Trivedi Central Soil Salinity Research Institute, Regional Research Station, Bharuch 392012, Gujarat

Background: Halophytes are generally defined as rooted seed-bearing plants that grow in a wide variety of saline habitats from coastal sand dunes, salt marshes and mudflats to inland deserts, salt flats and steppes. These highly adaptable plants, which can accrue relatively large amounts of salts. Endophytes are largely unexplored component of biodiversity, especially in the tropics. Endophytes are constantly exposed to intergenericgenetic exchange with the host plant. Although the presence of endophytic fungi in leaves of some of the halophytes from coastal region is somewhat known but endophytic bacteria and their bioprospecting potential from halophytes like Salicornia brachiata, Spharanthus indicus, Salvadora persica, Cressa cretica and Suaeda nudiflora is largely unknown. Objective: The present attempt was to isolate, characterize and explore the biological activity of endophytic bacteria from the leaves of 5 different salt tolerant plant species. Methodology: For the isolation of endophytic bacteria, healthy leaf samples of five dominant halophytes and other salt tolerant plant species were collected from coastal salt affected soils of Gujarat, India. Five sub-samples from each plant species growing in different locations were collected. After pretreatment, leaves were crushed, serially diluted and the plate spread onto nutrient agar medium in duplicates. After incubation morphologically different bacterial colonies were selected and streaked on nutrient agar slants and incubated at 28oC for 48 h. The isolates were characterized and screened for enzymatic activities. Results: Nutrient agar plates inoculated with 5 halophytes or salt tolerant plant leaf samples showed morphologically different bacterial colonies. Twenty isolates were selected for further investigations based on their fast growth. It reveals that, the counts were found maximum in Spharanthus indicus (40%) and were minimum in Salicornia brachiata (10%). Of the 20 viable and salt tolerant isolates selected, 3 were pigmented and 17 were non-pigmented isolated. Regarding cell shape and gram staining, 7 were gram-negative cocci, 2 gram-positive cocci, 4 gram-negative bacilli and 7 gram-positive bacilli. In total 11 isolates showed positive results for oxidase test whereas all cultures showed negative catalase test. The enzymatic activity of endophytic isolates revealed that 50% isolates exhibited amylase activity and only 15% isolates showed urease activity. All the 20 endophytic showed good growth at 2.5 % NaCl concentration 18 (90%) isolates grow upto 5% NaCl, seventeen (85%) isolates showed growth at 7.5% NaCl and fifteen (75%) tolerated upto 10% NaCl concentration. Overall, the growth rate of endophytes decreased with increasing salt concentrations.