ISOLATION AND SCREENING OF POTENT FUNGI FOR THE PRODUCTION OF BIOACTIVE METABOLITES FROM MARINE HABITATS OF SURYALANKA BEACH, ANDHRA PRADESH

Searching for novel antibiotics is the need of the hour to combat multidrug resistant pathogens. Hence, an attempt was made to isolate and identify promising antimicrobial metabolite producing fungi from marine soils of Suryalanka beach, Andhra Pradesh, India along with the study of their antimicrobial potential. The samples collected from mangrove habitats were pretreated with calcium carbonate, diluted and plated on Soybean casein digest agar (SCDA) and Malt extract agar (MEA) media to isolate marine fungi. Over all 10 fungal strains were isolated and screened for their antimicrobial activity. Among them designated as NRI-16 and NRI-21 were exhibited high antimicrobial potential was identified as Penicillium NRI-16 and Aspergillus NRI-21 based on their micro-morphological studies. The culture broth extracted with ethyl acetate was tested for antimicrobial activity and found to be active against pathogenic Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria as well as fungi. It was evident from the present study that marine habitats of Suryalanka serve as a good source for potent fungi possessing broad spectrum antimicrobial activity.