Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are a family of biopolyesters accumulated by a variety of microorganisms as carbon and energy storage under starvation conditions. We focused on marine purple non-sulfur photosynthetic bacteria as host microorganisms for PHA production and developed a method for their isolation from natural seawater. To identify novel PHA-producing marine purple non-sulfur photosynt...

The recognition of a new family of rhodopsins in marine planktonic bacteria, proton-pumping proteorhodopsin, expanded the known phylogenetic range, environmental distribution, and sequence diversity of retinylidene photoproteins. At the time of this discovery, microbial ion-pumping rhodopsins were known solely in haloarchaea inhabiting extreme hypersaline environments. Shortly thereafter, prote...

Surface-associated marine bacteria often produce secondary metabolites with antagonistic activities. In this study, tropodithietic acid (TDA) was identified to be responsible for the antibacterial activity of the marine epiphytic bacterium Pseudovibrio sp. D323 and related strains. Phenol was also produced by these bacteria but was not directly related to the antibacterial activity. TDA was sho...

Phospholipid compositions of 20 strains of marine and estuarine bacteria were determined. Results showed that phospholipids of marine bacteria differed very little from those of nonmarine organisms with phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol, and diphosphatidylglycerol being the predominant phospholipids in all strains examined. Lyso-phosphatidylethanolamine occurred in significant quan...

2 3 The prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in the marine environment is a growing 4 concern, but the degree to which marine mammals, seabirds and fish harbor these organisms is 5 not well documented. This project sought to identify the occurrence and patterns of antibiotic 6 resistance in bacteria isolated from vertebrates of coastal waters in the northeastern United 7 States. 472 isol...

The process of decomposition of bodies in the marine environment is poorly understood and almost nothing is currently known about the microorganisms involved. This study aimed to investigate the microbes involved in decomposition in the sea and to evaluate the potential use of marine bacterial succession for postmortem submersion interval (PMSI) estimation, for which there is currently no relia...

Considering antimicrobial resistance problem, marine microorganisms with the bioactivity against multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogens have attracted many scientific interests. To address this issue, a total of 21 marine actinomycetes isolated from the Caspian Sea have been screened out. Primary screening via cross-streak method revealed that 3 strains: MN2, MN39, and MN40 produce antimicrobial ...

Antimicrobials are heavily used in Chilean salmon aquaculture. We previously found significant differences in antimicrobial-resistant bacteria between sediments from an aquaculture and a non-aquaculture site. We now show that levels of antimicrobial resistance genes (ARG) are significantly higher in antimicrobial-selected marine bacteria than in unselected bacteria from these sites. While ARG i...

Several species of Magnetotactic bacteria have been discovered recently. These bacteria synthesize intracellular magnetic nanoparticles in specific sizes and shapes and arrange them in chains. These particles called magnetosomes and can be used for drug-delivery, cell-targeting and hyperthermia. Magnetotactic bacteria navigate along the magnetic field; this process is known as ‘magnetotaxis’ wh...

approved: Redacted for Privacy __ Dr. Christopher J. Bayne Characteristics of bacterial clearance were investigated in the purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus (Echinodermata: Echinoidea). Primary clearance kinetics were determined for three bacteria, a marine Gram negative motile rod, a marine Gram positive nonmotile rod, and a fresh water fish pathogen, Aeromonas salmonicida. Vari...