Abstract

In this study, a new agar-degrading strain was isolated from soil with agar as a sole carbon source and energy. Based on its morphological, physiological, biochemical characterization and 16S rDNA sequence, the strain was identified as Strep-tomyces lavendulae UN-8. The extracellular agarase activity reached 0.03 U/ml after fermentation in shake flask (250 ml), which was close to other reported non-marine micro-organisms. Furthermore, it is interesting that the growth of UN-8 would be inhibited by glucose (40 g/L) and maltose (40 g/L) with the inhibitory rate of 100% and 70%, respec-tively. Besides, UN-8 could be grown on the solid medium without any nitrogen sources, then the possible nitrogen fix-ation gene nifU was cloned from its genomic DNA. The de-duced amino acid sequence of nifU has high similarity (98%) with nitrogen fixation protein NifU from Streptomyces sp. NRRL S-104 (KJY22454.1) and Streptomyces sp. NRRL F-4428 (KJK52526.1) based on NCBI blast. It is suggested that the nifU gene of UN-8 also encoded nitrogen fixation protein NifU. These results provided some new information for the further understanding of agar-degrading strain.

• Keywords: agar-degarding; Streptomyces lavendulae; saccha-rides inhibition; nitrogen fixation