Abstract

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world and colorectal cancer is the only cancer that has shown a sustained increase in mortality in the last decade. In the search for new chemotherapeutic agents against cancer, extremophilic microorganisms have shown to be a potential source to obtain molecules of natural origin and with selective cytotoxic action towards cancer cells. In this work we analyzed the ability of a collection of Antarctic soil bacteria, isolated on Collins Glacier from the rhizosphere ofDeschampsia antarctica Desv plant, to secrete molecules capable of inhibiting cell proliferation of a colorectal cancer tumor line. Our results demonstrated that culture supernatants from the Antarctic bacteria K2I17 and MI12 decreased the viability of LoVo cells, a colorectal adenocarcinoma cell line. Phenotypic and genotypic characterization of the Antarctic bacteria showed that they were taxonomically related and nucleotide identity analysis based on the 16S rRNA gene sequence identified the bacterium K2I17 as a species belonging to the genus Bacillus.