Antarctic bacterial isolates that produce cold-active extracellular proteases at low temperature but are active and stable at high temperature

We report the isolation and identification of bacteria that produce extracellular cold-active proteases, obtained from water samples collected near the Uruguayan Antarctic Base on King George Island, South Shetlands. The bacteria belonged to the genera Pseudomonas (growth between 4 and 30 &#x00B...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polar Research
Main Authors: Cecilia Martínez-Rosales, Susana Castro-Sowinski
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Norwegian Polar Institute 2011
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3402/polar.v30i0.7123
https://doaj.org/article/d273d09306b54a1aba1ad455d0ed8268
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Summary:We report the isolation and identification of bacteria that produce extracellular cold-active proteases, obtained from water samples collected near the Uruguayan Antarctic Base on King George Island, South Shetlands. The bacteria belonged to the genera Pseudomonas (growth between 4 and 30 °C) and Flavobacterium (growth between 4 and 18 °C). In all cases, extracellular protease production was evident when reaching the stationary phase at 18 and 4 °C but was not detected at 30 °C. The zymogram revealed the secretion of one extracellular protease per isolate, each with different relative electrophoretic mobility. The extracellular proteases produced at 4 °C showed thermal activity and stability at 30 °C. Both activity and stability at a temperature higher that 10 °C have no physiological meaning because the isolates do not experience such temperatures in the Antarctic environment; however, the possible ecological value of cold-active and -stable extracellular proteases is discussed.