SCREENING AND ISOLATION OF THERMOPHILIC FUNGI OBTAINED FROM THREE SELECTED COMPOST WASTES SITES

Abstract

Thermostable enzymes have found applications in the improvement of products quality in various industries. Despite the discovery of several microorganisms as potential source of thermostable enzymes, more biodiversity explorations are currently been carried out for high activity enzymes producing isolates. The discovery of new isolates  having these characters will allow to efficiently carry out reactions in various industrial processes that involve extreme conditions. This study was aimed to screen and isolate thermophilic fungi from three selected compost wastes sites (Palm oil mill, Wood chip piles and Abattoir dump), and identify potential producers of lipases, cellulases and proteases respectively. The thermophilic fungi were obtained from an equal depth of one meter in all the three collection sites with a temperature range of 40 to 45^OC and later cultured at 70 ^OC. Further experimental screening analysis showed the presences of lipase, cellulase and protease producing fungi present in samples collected from palm oil mill, wood chips pills and abattoir dump site respectively. The isolated fungi were used for enzyme production in submerged fermentation for 10 days at 50^OC. Culture filtrate obtained from the medium of production were used for the assessment of enzymatic activity. The highest lipase, cellulase and protease activities were obtained from isolates 3 A (56.56 U/mL), 3A (38.35 U/mL) and 2B (3.0 U/mL) respectively. These isolates with high enzymes activities were identified microscopically as Rhizopus sp., Aspergillus flavus and Neurospora sp. accordingly. We believed that these strains could be further exploited for numerous industrial applications that require thermophilic enzymes.