Many studies on bacterial community composition (BCC) do not distinguish between particle-associated (PA) and free-living (FL) bacteria or neglect the PA fraction by pre-filtration removing most particles. Although temporal and spatial gradients in environmental variables are known to shape BCC, it remains unclear how and to what extent PA and FL bacterial diversity responds to such environment...

Marine biotechnology is the creation of products and processes from marine organisms through the application of the techniques of biotechnology, molecular and cellular biology, and bioinformatics. This is a scientifically fascinating and economically expanding field of science. No ecosystems provide greater genetic diversity or possibilities for new products and processes than the world's marin...

Halophilic bacteria grow over a wide range of salt concentrations. In this study we aimed to isolate and screen out the halophilic bacteria and to determine their activity for production of the bioactive compounds. A total of 50 water, sediments and soil samples were collected from Maharlu salt lake in southern region of Fars-Iran and subjected for isolation of the bioactive compound producing ...

Plastic debris causes extensive damage to the marine environment, largely due to its ability to resist degradation. Attachment on plastic surfaces is a key initiation process for their degradation. The tendency of environmental marine bacteria to adhere to poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) plastic surfaces as a model material was investigated. It was found that the overall number of heterotrop...

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is a component of the outer membrane of mainly Gram-negative bacteria and cyanobacteria. The LPS molecules from marine and terrestrial bacteria show structural variations, even among strains within the same species living in the same environment. Cyanobacterial LPS has a unique structure, since it lacks heptose and 3-deoxy-d-manno-octulosonic acid (also known as keto-de...

To explore the variability of bacterial biomass conversion factors in aquatic environments, 5 manne and 5 non-marine bacterial strains were exposed to nutrient deprivation in artificial seawater and physiological (NaC1, 9 g I-') water, respectively. Carbon content per cell (C,) and per volume (C,) were estimated from total cell number, particulate organic carbon and cell volume (V) measurements...

The ability to acquire diverse and abundant forms of iron would be expected to confer a survival advantage in the marine environment, where iron is scarce. Marine bacteria are known to use siderophores and inorganic iron, but their ability to use heme, an abundant intracellular iron form, has only been examined preliminarily. Microscilla marina, a cultured relative of a bacterial group frequent...

Natural products have been regarded as important sources that could produce potential chemotherapeutic agents. In the search for new bioactive entities, investigations were expanded to marine habitats. Mankind has known for the last several thousand years that marine organisms contain substances capable of potent biological activity. However, the first serious investigation of marine organisms ...

It has been hypothesized that the potential for anaerobic metabolism might be a common feature of bacteria in coastal marine waters (L. Riemann and F. Azam, Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 68: 5554-5562, 2002). Therefore, we investigated whether different phylogenetic groups of heterotrophic picoplankton from the coastal North Sea were able to take up a simple carbon source under anoxic conditions. O...