Article Antibacterial Activities of Bacteria Isolated from the Marine Sponges Isodictya compressa and Higginsia bidentifera Collected from Algoa Bay, South Africa Relebohile Matthew Matobole 1, Leonardo Joaquim van Zyl 1,*, Shirley Parker‐Nance 2,3, Michael T. Davies‐Coleman 4 and Marla Trindade 1 1 Institute for Microbial Biotechnology and Metagenomics (IMBM), Department of Biotechnology, University of the Western Cape, Robert Sobukwe Road, Bellville 7535, Cape Town, South Africa;
[email protected] (R.M.M.);
[email protected] (M.T.) 2 Department of Zoology, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, University Way, Port Elizabeth 6031, South Africa; Shirley.Parker‐
[email protected] 3 South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB), Somerset Street, Grahamstown 6139, South Africa 4 Department of Chemistry, University of the Western Cape, Robert Sobukwe Road, Bellville 7535, Cape Town, South Africa; mdavies‐
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +27‐21‐959‐2325 Academic Editor: Keith B. Glaser Received: 8 November 2016; Accepted: 30 January 2017; Published: 17 February 2017 Abstract: Due to the rise in multi‐drug resistant pathogens and other diseases, there is renewed interest in marine sponge endosymbionts as a rich source of natural products (NPs). The South African marine environment is rich in marine biota that remains largely unexplored and may represent an important source for the discovery of novel NPs. We first investigated the bacterial diversity associated with five South African marine sponges, whose microbial populations had not previously been investigated, and select the two sponges (Isodictya compressa and Higginsia bidentifera) with highest species richness to culture bacteria. By employing 33 different growth conditions 415 sponge‐associated bacterial isolates were cultured and screened for antibacterial activity.