Exploration and characterization of agriculturally and industrially important haloalkaliphilic bacteria from environmental samples of hypersaline Sambhar lake, India

Screening of bacteria from Sambhar lake, an extreme hypersaline environment of India, led to the isolation of 93 haloalkaliphilic bacteria growing optimally in media with 2-25 % salt and 6-12 pH. Based on 16S rRNA gene sequences, 93 isolates were further categorized into 32 groups, with each group representing a different taxa belonging to 3 phyla (Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Actinobacteria). Majority of the isolates (53.12 %) showed similarity with phylum Firmicutes which was followed by Proteobacteria (40.63 %) and Actinobacteria (6.25 %). The isolates belonging to 32 representative groups were further evaluated for the production of extracellular enzymes viz. amylase, cellulase, protease and xylanase, plant growth promoting attributes and BIOLOG (TM) substrate usage. Among all the isolates, xylanase producing isolates were in maximum (68 %) as compared to protease (56 %), cellulase (40 %), and amylase (37 %) producing strains. Similarly, among plant growth promoting activities, ammonia producing isolates were highest (56 %) when compared to those producing ACC deaminase (53 %), IAA (50 %), hydrogen cyanide (28 %), siderophore (21 %) and solubilizing P (34 %). Isolates showing enzymatic and PGP activities could be further utilized for promoting plant growth in saline affected area.