Diversity and Application of Arctic and Antarctic Marine Bacteria

Abstract

The Arctic and the Antarctic are representative cold habitats that offer good sources of useful enzymes with activity at low temperature. At low temperature, rate of enzymatic reactions, fluidity of cellular membrane, and affinity of uptake and transport systems decrease. Therefore, biomolecules of organisms living in cold habitat may show distinctive physical properties. Study on bacterial diversity of the Arctic and the Antarctic provides potential benefits by storing new gene pool as well as by finding new bacterial taxa. The understanding bacterial diversity also gives new insights into the biological mechanisms of adaptation to and tolerance of cold environments. In this study, we report Arctic and Antarctic bacteria that inhabit around the Korean Arctic Research Station Dasan and the Korean Antarctic Research Station King Sejong. We also give examples of useful bacteria such as protease-producing Arctic bacteria and a chitinase-producing Antarctic bacterium.