Bacteria Isolated from Canada’s White Rabbit Cave Revealed Antimicrobial Activities

Authors

  • Monica Walsh Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Thompson Rivers University
  • Soumya Ghosh Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Thompson Rivers University
  • Alfredo Garcia Ponce Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Thompson Rivers University
  • Chris James Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, The University of British Columbia
  • Gabriella Kam Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Thompson Rivers University
  • Tanna Lauriente Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Thompson Rivers University
  • Vincent Yu Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Thompson Rivers University
  • Kirk Safford British Columbia Speleological federation, Penticton, BC, Canada
  • Naowarat Cheeptham Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Thompson Rivers University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33043/FF.9.1.66-83

Abstract

Caves offer a unique habitat for microorganisms, which allow the adaptation of exclusive metabolic pathways to the resources available. This environment could enable the production of primary and secondary metabolites with unique antimicrobial or enzymatic properties. White Rabbit Cave is located in the Monashee Mountain range in south-central British Columbia, a metamorphic range not known for cave and karst development. The present study has recovered bacterial isolates from the White Rabbit Cave and assessed them for their antimicrobial properties by employing the agar plug assay. One hundred and six bacterial isolates were cultivated from the collected samples, among which, five bacterial isolates displayed antimicrobial properties against a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) strain. Furthermore, these five isolates were identified with 16S rRNA gene sequencing and through phylogenetic analysis. It has been observed that three of them (B076, B053, and B079) were identified as Streptomyces spp. (Phylum Actinobacteria) while the other two were recognized as Paenibacillus spp. (B039) and Paenibacillus terrae (B016) (Phylum Firmicutes). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that identifies bacterial species with antimicrobial properties from White Rabbit Cave in the Monashee Mountain range in British Columbia, Canada.

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Published

2023-05-08

How to Cite

Walsh, M., Ghosh, S., Ponce, A., James, C., Kam, G., Lauriente, T., … Cheeptham, N. (2023). Bacteria Isolated from Canada’s White Rabbit Cave Revealed Antimicrobial Activities. Fine Focus, 9(1), 66–83. https://doi.org/10.33043/FF.9.1.66-83

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2023): Fine Focus Volume 9

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2023 Monica Walsh, Soumya Ghosh, Alfredo Garcia Ponce, Chris James, Gabriella Kam, Tanna Lauriente, Vincent Yu, Kirk Safford, Naowarat Cheeptham

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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