Isolation, Screening and Identification of Laccase Producing Fungi from Eturnagaram Forest, Warangal District, Telangana, India

Abstract

Lacasse is one of the extracellular enzymes excreted from white and brown rot fungi, which is involved in ligninolysis. Laccases are N-glycosilated multi copper oxidases belonging to the group of the blue copper proteins. In fungi, laccase is present in Ascomycetes, Deuteromycetes, Basidiomycetes and is particularly abundant in many white-rot fungi that degrade lignin. Laccases have been subject of intensive research in the last decades due to their broad substrate specificity. In the recent years, their uses span from the textile to the pulp and paper industries, and food applications to bioremediation processes. Laccases also have uses in organic synthesis, where typical substrates are phenols and amines, and the reaction products are dimers and oligomers derived from the coupling of reactive radical intermediates. In this present study thirty white rot fungi were collected and investigated for highest laccase producing organisms in submerged fermentation. Among 30 cultures eighteen showed brown colour zone. Out of these, five isolates (Pv5, Pv3, Pv8, Pv11, and Pv12) had shown the brown colour zone from day one and Pv5 showed highest brown zone. This study describes the isolation of white rot fungi, their molecular identification and screening for their ability to produce laccase.. Based on sequence comparison and phylogenetic analysis with reference taxa the strain Pv5 was identified as Trametes sp.