Isolation and Characterization of a Yellow Pigmented Colony Forming Bacterium for Carotenogenesis

A yellow-pigmented colony forming, rod shaped bacterial strain C1B1Y was isolated and investigated for carotenogenesis. HPLC and spectrophotometric analysis confirmed production of β-carotene by the bacterial isolate C1B1Y. Comparison of a 486 bp nucleotide sequence cloned from the 16S rDNA region of the isolate C1B1Y by Ribosomal Database Project II - Sequence match showed greatest homology to Pantoea agglomerans (S_ab = 0.957). The bacterial isolate C1B1Y was screened by PCR for the presence of phytoene desaturase (crtI) and phytoene synthase (crtB) genes. Comparison of the deduced amino acid sequence of the DNA fragment (612 bp) cloned from the crtI-crtB genes of the new isolate showed variation of three amino acid residues from its nearest homolog of the Pantoea agglomerans.