Abstract:Halophilic microorganisms live in hypersaline environments, i.e. salted products, seafood and other high-salt foods. Salted-food is an important hypersaline environment rich in extremophiles. the authors collected 7 kinds of salted-foods collected from supermarkets in Wuhu, Anhui Province were used to isolate the halophilic microorganisms. According to the difference incolony morphology, 43 strains were selected for further identification based on the similarity of 16S rRNA gene sequence. After determination their classification status, representative strains from different species were selected for the detection of extracellular enzyme activities. Finally, it was determined that the 43 halophilic microorganisms contained 21 species in 13 genera in domains bacteria and archaea. There are 7 species in 4 genera belonging to halophilic archaea, while 14 species in 9 genera belonging to halophilic bacteria. This study isolated 3 strains produce extracellular amylase, 7 strains produce esterase, 1 strain produces gelatinase, and 8 strains produce catalase, which indicates that halophilic microorganisms are prevalent in the salted-food in the market. Extracellular enzymes produced by these halophilic microorganisms with strong salt-tolerance activity have potential applications in the biological industry.
