Current Science

N. Thirunavukkarasu ¹, Ben Jahnes ², Arthur Broadstock ³, M. B. Govinda Rajulu ⁴, T. S. Murali ⁵, Venkat Gopalan ², T. S. Suryanarayanan ⁴

Affiliations
1 Department of Botany, Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda College, Chennai 600 004, IN
2 Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, US
3 Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, US
4 Vivekananda Institute of Tropical Mycology, Ramakrishna Mission Vidyapith, Chennai 600 004, IN
5 Department of Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Manipal University, Manipal 576 104, IN

Abstract

Marine-derived fungi surviving as symptomless endophytes in seaweeds and seagrasses were screened for production of xylan-degrading enzymes. Of the eight endophyte isolates obtained from five different seagrasses and another eight from six different marine algae, half of them exhibited xylanase activity in an agar plate assay. Further examination of these lead candidates using spectrophotometric assays revealed that Trichoderma harzianum, endophytic in the brown alga Sargassum wightii, had the maximum secreted xylanase and xylosidase activity. Moreover, this fungus could grow in NaCl-containing media (up to 1.2 M NaCl), and inclusion of 0.26 M NaCl in the media elicited a two- and three-fold increase in extracellular xylanase and xylosidase activity respectively. These findings highlight the potential of prospecting marine derived fungal endophytes to identify novel cell-wall degrading enzymes of value to the biofuel industry.

Keywords

Biomass Deconstruction, Marine-Derived Fungi, Trichoderma harzianum, Xylan-Degrading Enzymes.

Full Text