Davood Naziri
1,2, Masoud Hamidi
1,3, Salar Hassanzadeh
1, Vahideh Tarhriz
1, Bahram Maleki Zanjani
2, Hossein Nazemyieh
4, Mohamm Amin Hejazi
5, Mohammad Saeid Hejazi
1*1 Department of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
2 Department of Agricultural Biotechnology, Faculty of Agriculture, Zanjan University, Zanjan, Iran.
3 Students’ Research Committee, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
4 Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
5 Branch for Northwest & West Region, Agricultural Biotechnology Research Institute of Iran (ABRII), Tabriz, Iran.
Abstract
Purpose: Carotenoids are of great interest in many scientific disciplines because of their wide distribution, diverse functions and interesting properties. The present report describes a new natural source for carotenoid production. Methods: Halorubrum sp., TBZ126, an extremely halophilic archaeon, was isolated from Urmia Lack following culture of water sample on marine agar medium and incubation at 30 °C. Then single colonies were cultivated in broth media. After that the cells were collected and carotenoids were extracted with acetone-methanol (7:3 v/v). The identification of carotenoids was performed by UV-VIS spectroscopy and confirmed by thin layer chromatography (TLC) in the presence of antimony pentachloride (SbCl5). The production profile was analyzed using liquid-chromatography mass spectroscopy (LC-MS) techniques. Phenotypic characteristics of the isolate were carried out and the 16S rRNA gene was amplified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results: LC-MS analytical results revealed that produced carotenoids are bacterioruberin, lycopene and β-carotene. Bacterioruberin was found to be the predominant produced carotenoid. 16S rRNA analysis showed that TBZ126 has 100% similarity with Halorubrum chaoviator Halo-G*T (AM048786). Conclusion: Halorubrum sp. TBZ126, isolated from Urmia Lake has high capacity in the production of carotenoids. This extremely halophilic archaeon could be considered as a prokaryotic candidate for carotenoid production source for future studies.