RESUMO
The phylogenetic diversity of cultivable actinobacteria isolated from sponges (Haliclona spp.) and associated intertidal zone environments along the northern parts of the western coast of India were studied using 16S rRNA gene sequences. A subset of randomly selected actinobacterial cultures were screened for three activities, namely predatory behaviour, antibacterial activity and enzyme inhibition. We recovered 237 isolates from the phylum Actinobacteria belonging to 19 families and 28 genera, which could be attributed to 95 putative species using maximum-likelihood partition and 100 putative species using Bayesian partition in Poisson tree processes. Although the trends in the discovery of actinobacterial genera isolated from sponges were consistent with previous studies from different study areas, we provide the first report of nine actinobacterial species from sponges. We observed widespread non-obligate epibiotic predatory behaviour in eight actinobacterial genera and we provide the first report of predatory activity in Brevibacterium , Glutamicibacter , Micromonospora , Nocardiopsis , Rhodococcus and Rothia . Sponge-associated actinobacteria showed significantly more predatory behaviour than environmental isolates. While antibacterial activity by actinobacterial isolates mainly affected Gram-positive target bacteria with little or no effect on Gram-negative bacteria, predation targeted both Gram-positive and Gram-negative prey with equal propensity. Actinobacterial isolates from both sponges and associated environments produced inhibitors of serine proteases and angiotensin-converting enzyme. Predatory behaviour was strongly associated with inhibition of trypsin and chymotrypsin. Our study suggests that the sponges and associated environments of the western coast of India are rich in actinobacterial diversity, with widespread predatory activity, antibacterial activity and production of enzyme inhibitors. Understanding the diversity and associations among various actinobacterial activities - with each other and the source of isolation - can provide new insights into marine microbial ecology and provide opportunities to isolate novel therapeutic agents.
RESUMO
OBJECTIVES: We examine here the association of multidimensional functional fitness with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) as compared to anthropometric indices of obesity such as body mass index (BMI) and waist to hip ratio (WHR) in a sample of Indian population. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHOD: We analysed retrospective data of 663 volunteer participants (285 males and 378 females between age 28 and 84), from an exercise clinic in which every participant was required to undergo a health related physical fitness (HRPF) assessment consisting of 15 different tasks examining 8 different aspects of functional fitness. RESULTS: The odds of being diabetic in the highest quartile of BMI were not significantly higher than that in the lowest quartile in either of the sexes. The odds of being a diabetic in the highest WHR quartile were significantly greater than the lowest quartile in females (OR = 4.54 (1.95, 10.61) as well as in males (OR = 3.81 (1.75, 8.3). In both sexes the odds of being a diabetic were significantly greater in the lowest quartile of HRPF score than the highest (males OR = 10.52 (4.21, 26.13); females OR = 10.50 (3.53, 31.35)). After removing confounding, the predictive power of HRPF was significantly greater than that of WHR. HRPF was negatively correlated with WHR, however for individuals that had contradicting HRPF and WHR based predictions, HRPF was the stronger predictor of T2DM. CONCLUSION: The association of multidimensional functional fitness score with type 2 diabetes was significantly stronger than obesity parameters in a cross sectional self-selected sample from an Indian city.
