Search

At currently, approximately 70 species of magnetotactic bacteria have been identified; thus, there is an urgent need to identify more magnetotactic bacteria from diverse environmental sources with potential applications in industry and biotechnology. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first magnetotactic bacterial strain discovered in Pakistan. The first magnetotactic bacteria, Magnetospirillum moscoviense MS-24, was isolated from Banjosa Lake (Rawalakot), Pakistan, in the current investigation. Magnetospirillum moscoviense MS-24 was screened using the Racetrack method. The Magnetospirillum moscoviense MS-24 were physically characterised using Atomic Force Microscopy, High-Resolution Scanning Electron Microscopy, and Transmission Electron Microscopy. The current study used microscopy to illustrate the shape of bacteria and to find a very obvious chain of magnetosomes within the bacterial cell. The Magnetospirillum moscoviense MS-24 measured about 4 ± 0.04 µm in length and 600 ± 0.02 nm in diameter. The microfluidic chip experiments were also used to detect magnetotaxis behaviour in bacteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) have ability to accumulate biominerals intracellularly as iron nanoparticles in the form of ferric oxide (Magnetite) and ferric sulphide (Greigite), known as magnetosomes. Most of them belong to the α-proteobacteria, β-proteobacteria and γ-proteobacteria class. In Pakistan, the magnetotactic bacterial strains are not yet isolated. In current study, the Magnetotactic bacterial strains are isolated from different environmental samples and a modified specific growth medium was used to culture the isolated MTB strains. The technique used for accumulation of bacteria in water samples was the magnetic enrichment technique. The isolation of magnetotactic bacteria is difficult and identified number of strains of magnetotactic bacteria is less than a hundred. So, there is a need to focus more on the identification and classification of MTB. The selected strains were cultured on scale up production and extraction of magnetosomes were carried out by Boiling method. The extracted magnetosomes were characterized by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]