Isolation and characterization of bacterial strains from a consortium associated to the Antarctic ciliate Euplotes focardii

Ciliate (Alveolata,Ciliophora) possess a diverse association of symbiotic bacteria. They can be presenta s endosymbionts or localized in the outer as ectosymbionts. In a previous study we reported the characterization of a bacterial consortium associated to E. focardii, a strict psycrophilic ciliate isolated from the Terra nova Bay, Antarctica (Pucciarelli et al2015). This consortium is composed by Bacteroidetes (19%), Alpfa probacteria (28%), Beta protobacteria (5%) and Gamma proeobacteria (33%). In the present study, we report the isolation of bacterial strains from this consortium. In particular we were interested in the isolation of bacterial stains able to grow in the presence of pollulants, in order to verify thir potential application in bioremediation. By using culture enrichment technique with different source of pollulants such as diesel oil, methanol and cadmium chloride, we succeded to isolate tree bacterial species.