Carotenoid Pigmentation in Antarctic Heterotrophic Bacteria as a Strategy to Withstand Environmental Stresses

摘要

Bacterial strains isolated from Antarctic environments were used to assess the role of carotenoid pigments as cryo- and solar radiation protectants. Isolates were subjected to one hundred 12-hr freeze-thaw cycles and exposed to ambient simulated solar radiation (300?Wm~(?2)) with growth recovery evaluated after pre-set time intervals. Differences in survival were observed between carotenoid pigmented and non-pigmented strains in response to the different stresses based upon the enumeration of colony forming units. On average carotenoid pigmented strains were more resistant to freeze-thaw cycles as compared to the non-pigmented strains. Survival for non-pigmented strains decreased precipitously from 2 × 10~(7) to 1.5 × 10~(4) cells mL~(?1), on average, within the first 20 cycles. Similar results were found in the solar radiation experiments. After 2?hrs of solar radiation exposure, 61% of the pigmented organisms survived versus 0.01% for the non-pigmented isolates. We applied an additive mixed model to estimate differences between the carotenoid pigmented and non-pigmented bacterial groups. Modeled results confirmed a positive effect of pigmentation on survivability and provide evidence that carotenoid pigmentation in heterotrophic bacteria isolated from Antarctic environments increases resistance to environmental stressors.