Muhamad Amin^{1, 2}

1 Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS), University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania 7250, Australia
2 Fisheries Faculty, University of 45 Mataram, West-Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Aquaculture, 2016, Vol. 6, No. 10   doi: 10.5376/ija.2016.06.0010
Received: 10 Oct., 2016    Accepted: 08 Nov., 2016    Published: 20 Nov., 2016

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Amin M., 2016, Isolation and characterization of cellulose-degrading bacteria from gastrointestinal tract of hybrid abalone as probiotic candidates, International Journal of Aquaculture, 6(10): 1-9 (doi: 10.5376/ija.2016.06.0010)

This study aimed at isolation and characterization of cellulose - degrading bacteria from gastrointestinal tracts (GIT) of hybrid abalone (Haliotis laevigata x H. rubra) as aquaculture probiotic candidates. The result showed that 7 endosymbiont bacteria had a capacity to degrade cellulose. Of these, 2 isolates exhibiting the highest cellulolytic activity were isolate C - aw2 and C -1. Based on their 16S rDNA sequences, these bacterial isolates displayed high similarity to Stenotrophomonas sp strain LY -2, and Bacillus sp strain WR -2, for isolate C – aw2 and C -1 respectively. Further in vitro characterizations indicated that these bacteria had a high viability in seawater and simulated GIT environments. In addition, both bacteria were non - toxic to juvenile abalone determined through an in vivo study. These results suggest that Stenotrophomonas sp and Bacillus sp could be potential probiotic candidates, especially to increase digestibility of plant-based aquaculture diets. However, the effect of these bacterial supplementation on the food digestibility of live aquatic species need to be further investigated.

Bacillus sp; Cellulolytic activity; Probiotic candidates; Stenotrophomonas sp