EVALUATION OF ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF A CYANOBACTERIUM SCYTONEMA SCHMIDTII GOM

Abstract

Scytonema schmidtii,a cyanobacterium was isolated from the collected soil samples from different locations of Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra state (India). Identification was carried out using morphological variation and taxonomical approaches according to Desikachary (1959) and Prescott (1962) .The axenic culture of Scytonema schmidtii was obtained by using the method recommended by Bolch and Blackburn (1996). The isolated Scytonema schmidtii was grown autotropically in BG-11 medium as described by Rippka et al.,(1979) and incubated at 30±2°c.After 25 days, biomass was harvested by filtration through double layered muslin cloth and dried using air blower. The biomass of this Scytonema schmidtii species was used for the assessment of antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli, Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Micrococcus flavus and Proteus mirabilis. The antibacterial activity was studied by disc diffusion method (Anonymous,1996).Methanol extract of Scytonema schmidtii showed the activity against all the tested bacterial strains.Maximum zone of inhibition (23±1.9 mm) was recorded with methanol extract of Scytonema schmidtii.