Screening of harmine tolerance/degrading bacteria from camel rumen

Abstract:

Abstract: [Objective] Peganum harmala, a famous traditional Chinese drug, contains a variety of alkaloids and toxic for many animals. Camels mainly live in desert or semi-desert areas, with the robust gastro- intestine system in digesting various feed including toxic plants without disease symptoms. [Methods] Camel rumen content was used as the inoculant to inoculate medium M98-5 which contains 100 mg?L-1 harmin and cultivated for 5 days. Upto 5 subculturings, strains that could degrading or tolerant harmine were isolated. Their conversion activity was determined by thin-layer chromatography. The taxonomic position of the strains were identified based on 16S rRNA sequences analysis. [Results] 15 out of the 29 isolates have harmine degrading activity. Most of the isolates are identified as the members of the Genera Lactobacillus (16 strains, 55%), Shigella (7 strains, 24%) and Bacillus (4 strains, 13.8%). Only one strain belong to genus Enterococcus and one belong to genus Megasphaera. [Conclusion] The results indicated that the harmine tolerance/degrading communities of camel rumen are limited and only Lactobacillus have harmine-degrading activity.