Abstract
The tremendous commercial potential of cellulases in a variety of applications remains the driving force for research in this area. The present study was aimed at isolation and screening of promising cellulolytic strains from locally collected soil samples. A promising cellulose degrading bacterial strain designated as St-2 was isolated from agricultural field. Optimization of fermentation media ingredients and environmental factors were done for optimizing growth of the      strain which facilitates effective cellulase production. St-2 showed luxuriant growth on sucrose, lactose, mannitol and inositol whereas the growth was moderate on dextrose and fructose. The strain was able to grow in a wide range of pH (5-11) and temperature (4-45 ˚C) and was tolerant to up to 6% (w/v) of NaCl concentration in the medium. The results indicate wide spectrum adaptability of the strain to variable pH, temperatures and saline concentrations that makes it an advantageous organism to survive in the fluctuating environmental conditions. The optimum pH and temperature for enzyme production were 7 (with 2.11 U/ml CMCase activities and 2.22 U/ml FPase activities) and 37˚C (with 1.73 U/ml CMCase activities and 1.92 U/ml FPase activities), respectively. The morphological and biochemical characteristics of the strain were consistent with those of the genus Brevibacillus. Analysis of the 16S rRNA gene sequence of strain St-2 showed a similarity score of 99% with Brevibacillusbrevis(GeneBank Accession No. AB271756) having BLAST score ranging between 821 to 827 bits.
Highlights
Cellulases constitute one of the most important groups of industrial enzymes capable of bioconversion of renewable lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol as an alternative to liquid fuels
A promising strategy to overcome this impediment involves the production of cellulolytic enzymes, hydrolysis of biomass, and fermentation of resulting sugars to desired products in a single process step via a cellulolytic microorganism or consortium
Bacterial strains were isolated from soil samples collected locally from Patna region of India, by the standard serial dilution technique on CMC agar [4] plates at 37 ̊C and an incubation period of 48 h and were purified by repeated sub culturing [5]
Summary
Cellulases constitute one of the most important groups of industrial enzymes capable of bioconversion of renewable lignocellulosic biomass to ethanol as an alternative to liquid fuels. A promising strategy to overcome this impediment involves the production of cellulolytic enzymes, hydrolysis of biomass, and fermentation of resulting sugars to desired products in a single process step via a cellulolytic microorganism or consortium. Such "consolidated bioprocessing" (CBP) offers very large cost reductions if there are selected microorganisms that possess the required combination of efficient substrate utilization and product formation capacity [2]. Bacteria present an attractive potential for the exploitation of cellulasess and hemicellulasess due to their rapid growth rate, enzyme complexity and extreme habitat variability [3] In this perspective, the present study was undertaken to explore the microbial world to enumerate cellulose degrading bacteria by survey and collection of the soil samples from agricultural, domestic and municipal wastes
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