Fay Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) Analysis of Moderately Thermophilic Bacteria Isolated from the Coramandal Coast, Chennai, Tamilnadu Sharmili AS 1 and Ramasamy P 2 1 Department of Biotechnology, Stella Maris College (Autonomous), Chennai 600 086, India 2 Research and Development Wing, Sree Balaji Medical College and Hospital, BIHER (Bharath University), Chennai, India Corresponding author: Sharmili AS, Department of Biotechnology, Stella Maris College (Autonomous), Chennai 600 086, India; Email: arsharmilis@gmail.com Received date: October 28, 2016; Accepted date: December 28, 2016; Published date: December 30, 2016 Copyright: © 2016 Sharmili AS, et al. This is an open-access arcle distributed under the terms of the Creave Commons Aribuon License, which permits unrestricted use, distribuon, and reproducon in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citaon: Sharmili AS, Ramasamy P. Fay Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) Analysis of Moderately Thermophilic Bacteria Isolated from the Coramandal Coast, Chennai, Tamilnadu. Abstract A total of 18 out of 44 moderately thermophlic bacteria isolated from water samples of the Coramandal Coast, Chennai, Tamilnadu, were analyzed for Fay Acid Methyl Ester (FAME). The present study showed that the predominant fay acid was 15:0i followed by 15:0a, which were characterisc of Bacillus. The results suggest that the order of decreasing abundance of terminally branched fay acids is as follows: iso even-numbered acids namely 16:0i, 14:0i, iso odd-numbered acids, 15:0i, 17:0i, 13:0i, 19:0i and anteiso acids, 15:0a, 17:0a, 11:0a, 19:0a. Straight chain saturated fay acids idenfied were 10:0, 12:0, 14:0, 16:0, 18:0. The remaining fay acids components were present in negligible quanes. The isolates were also idenfied and classified using the comparison with the TSBA database as B. cereus-GC subgroup A (isolates ASR 29CIII, ASR 37CIII), B. sublis (isolates ASR 6SII, ASR 21SI, ASR 25SV), B. laevolaccus (isolates ASR 4LIII, ASR 7SIII, ASR 11LVI, ASR 42SVII), B. alcalophilus (isolates ASR 14PI, ASR 18PIV), B. pumilus subgroup A (isolate- ASR 41PVIII), Staphylococcus schleiferi (isolates- ASR 2LII, ASR 5LIV), S. gallinarum-GC subgroup A (isolates ASR 13SIV, ASR 33SVI), Kurthia sibirica (isolate ASR 15PII), Geobacillus stearothermophilus-GC subgroup (isolate ASR 8LV). Keywords: Moderately thermophilic bacteria; Bacillus; FAME; Fay acids; 15:0i; 15:0a; 17:0a Introducon Microbial biomarkers are chemical components of microorganisms which can be analyzed in a given sample and interpreted (both quantavely and qualitavely) in terms of in situ microbial biomass. The most useful biomarkers are membrane lipids and their related fay acids as they are essenal components of every living cell and have great structural diversity and high biological specificity [1]. Two common approaches are analysis of microbial lipids: (i) polar phospholipid fay acid (PLFA) analysis and (ii) total fay acid methyl ester (total FAME) [2]. PLFA assay provides informaon leading to idenficaon and quanficaon of viable bacterial biomass [3]. Total FAME analysis, on the other hand, includes all saponifiable lipids present in the sample (including PLFAs). Polyunsaturated fay acids and long chain fay acids beyond 18 carbons are absent in Prokaryotes. Saturated or monounsaturated fay acids of length 10 to 18 carbon are present in Eukaroytes [4,5]. Bacterial fay acids are highly conserved due to their role in cell structure and funcon and are the major constuents of the lipid bilayer of bacterial membranes and lipopolysaccharides. They have been used extensively for taxonomic and idenficaon purposes. Whole cellular FAME content is a bacterial profile and is a direct and stable expression of the cellular genome. The cellular fay acid paern is a phenotypic character that is not affected by mutaons, acquision or loss of plasmids. The use of fay acid analysis by gas chromatography for the idenficaon of bacteria is rapid, efficient, reproducible and used for the idenficaon of both clinical and environmental isolates [6-10]. Fay acids are mainly located in the cytoplasmic membrane as constuents of phospholipids and as lipopolysaccharides in the outer membrane of Gram-negave bacteria as well as lipoteichoic acids in Gram-posive bacteria. The importance of FAME analysis for the idenficaon of bacteria is based on the large structural differences within these molecules viz., (i) variaon in length (8 to 20 C-atoms), (ii) presence of saturated and monounsaturated fay acids, (iii) occurrence of branched fay acids (iso and anteiso fay acids or methylated within the molecule), (iv) occurrence of cyclopropane fay acids (17:0c, 19:0c), (v) occurrence of hydroxy-fay acids with an OH-group at posion two or three of the molecule. For classificaon or idenficaon of bacteria the presence of disnct fay acids and their relave amount is analyzed and compared with the fay acid profiles of reference strains. The characterisc feature of a phylogenec group of bacteria can be the dominang presence of a single fay acid or a specific fay acid paern. As the fay acid composion of bacteria is dependent on the growth phase, temperature and growth medium, standardizaon of these condions is important. FAME assay is a powerful tool in the study of Research Article iMedPub Journals http://www.imedpub.com/ European Journal of Experimental Biology ISSN 2248-9215 Vol.6 No.6:5 2016 © Under License of Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License | This article is available from: http://www.imedpub.com/european-journal-of-experimental- biology/ 1