Full Length Research Paper

Isolation, identification and screening of potential xylanolytic enzyme from litter degrading fungi

Muthusamy Palaniswamy¹*, Bhathini Vaikuntavasan Pradeep¹ Ramaswamy Sathya¹ and Jeyaraman Angayarkanni²

¹Department of Microbiology, Karpagam Arts and Science College, Coimbatore -641 021, Tamilnadu, India.

²Department of Biotechnology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore – 641 046, Tamilnadu, India.

*Corresponding author. E-mail:  palaniswamy_m@yahoo.com.

Accepted 28 July, 2006

Consortia of litter degrading fungal species were developed from different baiting substrates collected in and around Western ghat forest ecosystem, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India. Fifty-three litter degrading fungal species were isolated by nylon litterbag technique. The production of endo-b-1,4-xylanase (1,4-b-D-xylan xylanohydrolase, E.C. 3.2.1.8), b-D-xylosidase (1,4-b-xylan xylanohydrolase, E.C. 3.2.1.37) and protease was studied using oat spelt xylan as carbon source. Results showed that all fifty-three fungal species isolated from various litter samples produced fairly good xylanolytic enzyme activity. The xylanase and b-D-xylosidase activity ranges from 4.41 to 132.20 U and 48.72 to 1510.32 U, respectively. Growth was determined in terms of mycelial dry weight, which ranged between 0.209 and 1.047 mg/ml. The protease enzyme activity was from 19.7 to 60.8 U. This is the first report concerning xylanolytic enzyme production by the litter degrading fungi, isolated from litter samples.

Key words: Litter degrading fungi, xylanolytic enzyme, xylanase, b-xylosidase.