Isolation and Screening of Cold Active Extracellular Enzymes Producing Psychrotrophic Bacteria from Soil of Jammu City

Abhas Kumar Maharana* and Pratima Ray

Department of Microbiology, C.B.S.H., Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology, Bhubaneswar - 751003, India.

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/bbra/1120

ABSTRACT: Extracellular cold active enzymes from psychrotrophs and psychrophiles have higher enzymatic activity at lower temperature than their mesophilic and thermophilic counterparts. A total of twenty soil samples were collected from different sites of Jammu city (India) such as from garden, citrus orchards, guava field, and brinjal field in winter season. These samples were screened for the isolation of psychrotrophic microorganisms at 15°C by serial dilution method. Maximum incidences of psychrotrophic bacteria were found to be present in garden soil samples (33.33%) and bacterial load was 13.5×105 Cfu/gm. Only eleven isolates among 40 were grown at 4°C. The isolated psychrotrophic bacteria were belong to the genera of Bacillus, Paenibacillus, Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus, Arthrobacter, E coli and Micrococcus. All the above isolates of bacteria were tested for the production of cold active extracellular enzymes like proteases, cellulases, amylases, pectinases, and lipases. Enzymatic performance was evaluated at 4, 15 and 30°C by plate assay method. Lipase activities at both 4 and 15°C were detected as maximum than others by 27.5% and 85% of the bacterial isolates respectively. The potential of these psychrotrophic bacteria as a resource of enzymes have found their way into biotechnological and industrial applications.

KEYWORDS: Psychrotrophic bacteria; Cold active enzymes; Jammu city

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