Generation of actinomycete mutants by exposing corresponding tolerant wild type strains from Khumbu, Everest Base Camp

Here goes below an abstract of work of Junu Hamal and Shruti Regmi who pursued their thesis conducted under my supervision and Prof. Agrawal as a partial fulfillment of their B. Sc. Biochemistry degree from Universal Science College, Pokhara University. They jointly worked to generate mutants of tolerant wild type actinomycete strains isolated from Khumbu, Everest Base Camp. The work is granted by International Foundation for Science (IFS) – 2008. This endeavor followed the findings of previous student, Keshav Bhattarai for his thesis work. With his work, we discovered various Gain-of-Function and Loss-of-Function mutations in a Streptomyces strain isolated from a soil sampele from Everest Base Camp.

Abstract: Sodium azide is being used to generate mutants of Actinomycetes isolated in Research Laboratory for Biotechnology and Biochemistry (RLABB) from soil samples from Khumbu, Mount Everest Base camp. With the International Foundation for Science (IFS)-Grant 2008, this work was done to expand the limited number of mutants of tolerant actinomycetes (50-100ppm) of sodium azide. Actinomycetes were isolated in Starch Casein Agar (SCA) from the soil samples and subsequently purified. Of the total 36, 12 were found to be sensitive upto 100 ppm of sodium azide and were selected to generate mutants. Based on differences in colonial characteristics compared from the 12 wild strains, 36 mutants (each from 50ppm, 75ppm and 100ppm of sodium azide) were selected and purified in an agar medium without the mutagen. Individual mutants were described for their colonial morphologies.