Department of Microbiology, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra-136119, Haryana, India
Department of Biotechnology, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra-136119, Haryana, India
Ever increasing use of cellulases in industry has led to the search for new enzymes with high activities. Cellulases play a pivotal role in biomass utilization. The present study was carried out to investigate the potential of a filamentous fungus, Aspergillus niger BK01 for hyper-production of carboxymethyl cellulase (CMCase) using alkali assisted acidic pretreated rice straw as growth supporting substrate under submerged fermentation (SmF). An optimization of process parameters is a necessary step to get higher yield of product. The highest CMCase activity was obtained when the fungus was cultivated on (3.5%) pretreated rice straw, pH 5.0 for 72h incubation at 280C. When CMCase production conditions were optimized with different carbon and nitrogen sources, the highest CMCase production was observed with cellulose and ammonium nitrate respectively.
Keywords: Carboxymethyl cellulase (CMCase), qualitative screening, quantitative screening, pretreated rice straw, 3,5 - dinitrosalicylic acid reagent.