Amylase-Producing Fungi and Bacteria Associated with Some Food Processing Wastes

Abstract

Amylases are enzymes that catalyze the hydrolysis of glycosidic bonds present in starch to release simple sugars. They are one of the most important enzymes in numerous commercial processes. In this investigation, fungal and bacterial strains from the following agro-industrial wastes were isolated and screened for amylolytic ability: soil from oil palm plantation, shea seed, date fruit, coconut meat, cassava effluent, cassava peel, cassava tubers, yam and potato tubers, starch medium, parboiled water from noodles and rice. The results revealed the presence of Geotrichum, Aspergillus, Penicillium, Trichoderma, Rhizopus and Fusarium spp. Five major genera of bacterial species namely Corynebacterium, Pseudomonas, Lactobacillus, Micrococcus and Bacillus were isolated and screened for amylase activity. Cassava soil had the highest heterotrophic bacterial count of 5.7 x105cfu/g and coconut meat waste had the lowest heterotrophic bacterial count of 1.3 x105cfu/g. All isolated microorganisms had the amylolytic ability. The fungal isolates had higher amylase activity when compared with the bacterial isolates. This investigation reveals organisms with high amylase activity.

Optimization of α-Amylase Production by Enterobacter cloacae Strain D1 Isolated from Cassava Effluent-impacted Soil Using Response Surface Methodology

“…Due to the richness of cassava effluent in carbohydrates, many studies have explored the potentials of using cassava effluent or wastewater as source of amylase-producing bacteria. Results of these explorations have been rewarding with resultant amylases which are active at wide temperature and pH ranges [30][31][32].…”

AMYLOLYTIC POTENTIAL OF Arthrobacter sp. AND Bacillus aerius FROM WASTE DUMP-SITES OF TWO BAKERIES LOCATED WITHIN KADUNA METROPOLIS, NIGERIA

“…This result and other reports on Bacillus spp. with amylase-producing ability from food wastes (Abd-Elhalem et al, 2015;Krishma & Radhathirumalaiarasu, 2017;Okunwaye et al, 2021), industrial waste (Sundarram & Murthy, 2014), plantation soils (Madhav et al, 2011;Lincoln et al, 2019), and soils of various garbage dumpsites (Madhav et al, 2011;Singh & Kumari, 2016) corroborate Pandey et al (2000), who reiterated that Bacillus spp. is the most ubiquitous of all amylase-producing bacteria.…”

“…Additionally, investigations are ongoing into glucoamylase derived from archaea (Prakash et al, 2009) because glucoamylase is the only enzyme capable of wholly breaking down starch into glucose (Mondal et al, 2022), and the fungal glucoamylase employed in the second step (Sundarram & Murthy, 2014) i.e., in conversion of limit dextrin to glucose is limited by its optimal temperature of 60 0 C (Bozic et al, 2011). The selection of an appropriate microorganism is therefore a key determinant in the synthesis of targeted enzymes (John, 2017); more so, scouting and screening of bacteria with high amylase activity might facilitate the development of novel amylases required in industrial processes (Gopinath et al, 2017;Okunwaye et al, 2021;Niyomukiza et al, 2023). This present study aims to explore bakery waste for amylolytic bacteria, characterize the bacterial isolate using biochemical tests and molecular techniques, and highlight their potential field of application.…”