Title

Authors

Affiliation

Department of Biotechnology, Lady Doak College, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India.

Email

shenbagarathai@rediffmail.com; *Corresponding author

Article Type

Hypothesis

Date

Received May 14, 2012; Accepted May 24, 2012; Published May 31, 2012

An indigenous Bacillus thuringiensis strain B.t.LDC-391 producing cytocidal proteins against human colon cancer cell line, HCT-116, was subjected to phenotypic and genotypic characterization to evaluate its relatedness to B.anthracis. The morphological features of this strain were meta-analyzed with data of other parasporin and insecticidal protein producing Bacillus thuringiensis strains. The conventional biochemical analysis and antibiotic sensitivity test proved it as an ampicillin resistant which is a salient feature, absent in B.anthracis Ames. PCR analysis showed the absence of cyt and parasporin related genes in the genome of B.t.LDC-391. But the strain was positive for cap gene. The sequencing and bio-informatic analysis of cap gene and 16S rDNA of B.t.LDC-391 placed it closer to B.thuringiensis and revealed significant divergence from that of any B.anthracis strain. However our strain lacked β–hemolysis on human erythrocytes which is a common feature of B.anthracis strains and parasporin producers.

Keywords

Parasporin, B.thuringiensis, cancer cell killing, antibiotic resistance

Citation

Poornima et al. Bioinformation 8(10): 461-465 (2012)
 

Edited by

P Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.