Genetic diversity of bioluminescent bacteria in diverse marine niches

Abstract

The biodiversity of marine luminous bacteria has been well defined from their typical habitats viz. light organ containing squids and fishes. However, distribution and diversity of luminous bacteria among various non-luminous marine niches (non-typical habitats) are not fully investigated yet. This report describes the genetic diversity of luminous bacteria among nonluminous marine samples of different marine taxa collected from Andaman Islands. Twenty-one luminous bacterial isolates were obtained from these samples and characterized using Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) patterns by <em>Hha</em>I digestion of PCR-amplified 16S rRNA gene products and 16s rRNA gene sequence analysis. Restriction patterns clearly discriminated genus <em>Vibrio</em> and <em>Photobacterium</em>; and sequence analysis revealed the prevalence of harveyi clade members: <em>Vibrio campbellii</em> (9), <em>V. harveyi</em> (3), <em>V. rotiferianus</em> (2), <em>V. alginolyticus </em> (2), <em>V. owensii </em> (2), and then <em>Photobacterium damselae </em> (2) and <em>P. leiognathi </em> (1).