Materials and methods
Isolation and maintenance of the actinomycetes
strain
During the course of screening for antibiotics from actinomycetes
of Loktak habitats, an alkaliphilic strain was isolated using Starch Casein agar medium (SCA) [27] from
alkaline soil, collected from phoomdi in Loktak lake of
Manipur, India. Phoomdi (Manipuri word meaning floating
mats of soil and vegetation) is a unique untapped habitat
with heterogenous mass of soil, vegetation and organic
matter in different stages of decay. The pure culture was
maintained on SCA slants (2% [w/v]) NaCl, pH 8) at 4 8C.