ISOLATION OF VIBRIO SP. S-1 EXHIBITING EXTRAORDINARILY HIGH CATALASE ACTIVITY

A bacterium exhibiting extraordinarily high catalase activity was isol ated from a drain pool of a fish product processing plant that uses H2 O2 as a bleaching and microbicidal agent. The isolate was a gram-negat ive, rod-shaped, oxidase-positive, facultative anaerobe capable of bot h fermentative and respiratory metabolism, and sensitive to vibriostat ic compound O/129. Although the isolate was non-flagellated, its taxon omic characteristics and phylogenetic position based on a 16S rRNA ana lysis indicated that it belonged to the genus Vibrio. A culture medium containing living cells and a cell-free extract prepared from 48-h cu ltured cells of the isolate exhibited catalase activity of 680 units/m g cells and 7276 units/mg protein, respectively. The activity of the c ell-free extract of the isolate was 2 orders greater than those of Esc herichia coli and Bacillus subtilis. Application of the newly isolated bacterium or its enzyme will provide an effective means of decomposin g H2O2 contained in industrial waste such as that produced in the pape r, food, textile, and semiconductor industries.