Full Length Research Paper

Ligninolytic enzyme activities in mycelium of some wild and commercial mushrooms

Erbil Kalmış¹, İhsan Yaşa², Fatih Kalyoncu³*, Barış Pazarbaşı² and Ali Koçyiğit²

¹Ege University, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Bioengineering, Bornova - İzmir/Turkey.

²Ege University, Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, Bornova - İzmir /Turkey.

³Celal Bayar University, Faculty of Science and Arts, Department of Biology, Muradiye - Manisa / Turkey.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: fatihkalyoncu@hotmail.com. Fax: +902362412158.

Accepted 17 October, 2008

Lignin is probably one of the most recalcitrant compounds synthesized by plants. This compound is degraded by few microorganisms. White-rot fungi have been extensively studied due to its powerful ligninolytic enzymes. In this study, ligninolytic enzyme activities of different fungal species (six commercial and 13 wild) were investigated in solid and liquid culture media. It was postulated that, among the wild strains, only Pleurotus ostreatus-1 (MCC45), P. ostreatus-2 (MCC40), Pleurotus eryngii-1 (MCC25) and P. eryngii-2 (MCC26), and commercial strains P. ostreatus, P. sajor-caju, P. eryngii presented lignin peroxidase (LiP) activity. All enzymes tested in this study were not determined in Rigidoporus ulmarius, Gloeophyllum trabeum and Tricholoma caligatum as well as commercial strain Pleurotus citrinopileatus. Therefore, the results of the present study allow us to conclude that wild P. ostreatus and P. eryngii are good candidates for scale-up ligninolytic enzyme production.

Key words: Basidiomycetes, enzymatic activity, lignocellulose.