Endophytic bacterial communities colonizing the medicinal plant Calotropis procera: as resources of hydrolases

Calotropis procera (Aiton) W.T. Aiton is a shrub belongs to family Asclepiadaceae which known by its medicinal properties. It is a widely growing plant distributed in tropical and sub-tropical Africa, and America. This study is the first report which highlights the diversity of bacterial endophytes from C. procera as sources of numerous hydrolytic exo-enzymes. Endophytic bacteria were isolated from all plant parts such as; roots, stems, leaves, flowers, fruits and latex. Bacillus was the prevalent genus. At the species level, the bacterial diversity was high. Eight representative species were isolated including; Citricoccus alkalitolerans (Cps2) (NR025771), Bacillus cereus (Cps1) (NR074540), B. pumilus (Cps3) (NR112637), B. firmus (Cpl1) (NR025842), B. niabensis (Cpl3) (NR043334), B. subtilis (Cpl4) (NR113265), B. amyloliquefaciens (Cpl10) (NR041455) and B. subtilis subsp. spizizenii (Cpl13) (NR112686). Results of the current study emphasized that C. procera plant hosts diverse endophytic bacteria, which are potential producers of several economically important hydrolytic enzymes i.e., amylase, protease, cellulase, lipase and L-asparaginase.  The aims of the current study were to identify the endophytic bacteria associated with the different organs of the medicinal plant C. procera, and to evaluate their potentialities to produce diverse extracellular hydrolytic enzymes.