Abstract:
There is need to investigate novel cultivation approaches and develop new equipment
to recover many previously uncultured microbes, classify and catalogue them as they
provide a valuable resource for research and the development of modern
biotechnology. A combination of both culture-dependent and culture-independent
methods has been previously used to document the microbial diversity of Lake
Elmenteita. The aim of this study was to isolate novel microorganisms from the
sediments of the haloalkaline lake Elmenteita using media supplemented with signal
molecule cAMP and characterize by polyphasic taxonomy. The novel bacteria's
colony characteristics, features of the cell, biochemical, physiological and
chemotaxonomic markers were determined. Genotypic characteristics were also
studied. Bacteriophages were also isolated from sediments using indigenous bacterial
hosts. The resultant bacteriophages were characterized by morphology, growth
characteristics, host range, structural proteins and genomes by restriction
endonuclease analysis and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. The bacteriophages were
further sequenced, annotated and analysed using various bioinformatic tools. Three
novel bacterial strains designated No.164
T
, No.7
T
and No.156
T
were isolated,
characterized and identified as Belliella kenyensis, Streptomyces alkaliphilus and
Nocardiopsis mwathae, respectively. The 16S rRNA gene sequences were deposited
in GenBank
