Abstract

Water samples were collected from five different places at Muthupettai mangrove along the east cost of Tamil Nadu, India. Five different Aspergillus species were isolated and identified by using lacto phenol cotton blue staining method. From this, Aspergillus flavuswas tested in Modified Park’s Agar for its cellulase enzyme production in different physico-chemical properties of substrates. The effect of different carbon source, nitrogen compound and physico-chemical conditions like temperature, pH and incubation periods were studied for derivation of cellulase enzyme. The purity of cellulase enzyme was analyzed by ammonium sulphate precipitation and high performance liquid chromatography. The molecular weight of enzyme was determined by SDS–PAGE. From the above results, the cellulase production is higher at pH 8 and 30°C on 7 days of incubation period. It also inferred that the enzyme inquisition raised by the rice bran than two substrates examined.

Key words: Mangrove, Aspergillus flavus, cellulase enzyme, ammonium sulphate precipitation, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).