EVALUATION OF ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITY OF A CYANOBACTERIUM SCYTONEMA SCHMIDTII GOM

Scytonema schmidtii,a cyanobacterium was isolated from the collected soil samples from different locations ofAhmednagar district of Maharashtra state (India). Identification was carried out using morphological variation andtaxonomical approaches according to Desikachary (1959) and Prescott (1962) .The axenic culture of Scytonemaschmidtii was obtained by using the method recommended by Bolch and Blackburn (1996). The isolated Scytonemaschmidtii was grown autotropically in BG-11 medium as described by Rippka et al.,(1979) and incubated at 30±2°c.After25 days, biomass was harvested by filtration through double layered muslin cloth and dried using air blower. Thebiomass of this Scytonema schmidtii species was used for the assessment of antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli,Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Micrococcus flavus and Proteus mirabilis. Theantibacterial activity was studied by disc diffusion method (Anonymous,1996).Methanol extract of Scytonema schmidtiishowed the activity against all the tested bacterial strains.Maximum zone of inhibition (23±1.9 mm) was recorded withmethanol extract of Scytonema schmidtii.