Summary

The project aims to carry out a comprehensive study on the bioactive pigments produced by bacteria isolated from three main mangrove sediments in Sri Lanka. Although the richness of Sri Lankan mangrove forests with regard to the floral and faunal diversity have been acknowledged, the microbial potentials of these unique ecosystems remain illusive. As per our knowledge, not many studies have been done on the possible applications of the secondary metabolites produced by Sri Lankan mangrove-associated bacteria. In one of our on-going studies focusing, we have isolated several bacterial strains that produce pigments of different colours and preliminary studies have indicated on their potential bioactive properties that can be exploited for industrial applications.
Hence this study proposes to further isolate pigment producing-bacteria from Sri Lankan mangrove ecosystems and to extract their pigments to analyze their bioactive properties that can be successfully adopted in biotechnological applications

Objectives

1. To select sampling sites in mangrove ecosystems located around Negombo, Puttalam and
Chilaw lagoons
2. To isolate pigment producing bacteria from selected sampling sites
3. To extract bacterial pigments and purify them using standard methods
4. Preliminary characterization of pigments – biochemical and physiological characterization
5. To characterize bacterial strains producing selected bioactive pigments – Biochemical and
molecular biological characterization
6. To characterize selected bioactive pigments isolated from mangrove-associated bacteria
7. To identify and explore the biotechnological potentials of selected pigments

Major Equipment Facilitated by Grant