During antifungal screening of some plants, the water extract of lichen, Parmelia cirrhatum was found to be most effective against tested pathogenic fungi at the range of 60-80 microL/mL concentrations. The extract showed heavy doses of inoculum potential at 80 microL/mL and the antifungal activity of the extract did not expire up to 24 months of storage. The extract did not showed any irritation on mammalian skin up to 10% concentration. Thus, the water extract of Parmelia cirrhatum can be used a potential source of natural antifungal against fungal infections.

During antifungal screening of some essential oils, Foeniculum vulgare exhibited the strongest activity, completely inhibiting the mycelial growth of the nail-infective fungi, Trichophyton rubrum, T. mentagrophytes and Scytalidium dimidiatum. The essential oil was found to be fungicidal at 0.2, 0.4 and 0.5 µl/ml concentrations. The oil was efficiently active against heavy doses of inoculum at minimum fungicidal concentrations. The fungicidal activity of the oil was found to be thermostable up to 80°C, with no descramble decrease in activity after 48 months of storage. The oil also showed a broad fungitoxic spectrum, inhibiting the mycelial growth of other nail-infective fungi, viz. Aspergillus flavus, A. fumigatus, A. niger, A. ustus, Candida albicans, Epidermophyton floccosum, Microporum audouinii , M. canis, M. gypseum, M. nanum, Rhizopus nigricans, Trichophyton tonsurans and T. violaceum. Moreover, it did not exhibit any adverse effects on mammalian skin and nails up to 5% concentration. As such, the oil has a potential use as an effective herbal chemotherapeutic after undergoing successful clinical trials.

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As knowledge of sulphur oxidising bacterial communities in mangrove sediments is very sparse and sulphur oxidizers have wide application such as in treatment of wastewater containing high sulphate levels which causes unwanted H 2 S production by sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB), oxidation of elemental sulphur to plant available sulphate for plant growth promotion, bio leaching, biocontroling agent etc. Hence, in the present study an attempt has been made to explore the diversity of sulphur oxidizing bacteria from mangroves of Mahanadi delta, Odisha to evaluate their biotechnological potential. Two sulphur oxidising bacteria (SOB-7and SOB-8) were isolated from mangrove soils of Mahanadi river delta, based on the change of colour of the thiosulphate broth medium from purple to colour less by reducing the pH. Based on morphological, biochemical and 16S rRNA gene sequencing the two strains (SOB-7) and (SOB-8) were identified as Klebsiella sp., and Micrococcus sp. respectively. The gene bank accession number of the strains are KR632644 (SOB-7) and KR632643 (SOB-8). The strain Klebsiella sp. and Micrococcus sp showed sulphate ion production ability of 243 mg/ml and 240 mg/ml respectively with decrease in pH from 7.0 to 4.0. Among these two isolates, SOB-8 showed higher sulphide oxidase production ability (126.83 U/ml) than the isolate, SOB-7 (126.0 U/ml). Maximum sulphide oxidase by both the strains were obtained at temperature 45°C, peptone as nitrogen source, thiosulphate concentration of 10 mg/ml. pH 9.0 for the isolate SOB-8 whereas pH 7.0 for the isolate, SOB-7. Partially purified enzyme of both the isolate showed higher activity at same substrate concentration of 1.5mg/ml, but varies with pH and temperature.

During a study of microbial diversity, a bacterial strain designated HT10, was isolated from sediment collected from an unexplored sulfur spring at Athamallik, Orissa, India. Various biochemical tests and 16S rDNA sequence analysis revealed that strain HT10 is Aeromonas caviae. The growth temperature of this strain ranged from 12 to 43°C and the optimum temperature was 30°C. The strain HT10 showed cytotoxic and α‐hemolytic activity. This is the first report on the isolation of Aeromonas caviae from sulfur spring.