Screening and characterization of lignocellulolytic bacteria from agricultural waste and contaminated soil

Lignocellulolytic bacteria are the types of bacteria that are essential in degrading ligocellulosic material such as agricultural waste and plant material. The intention of conducting this study is to gain knowledge in the degradation of lignocellulose by the microorganism especially bacteria. There is not much of knowledge about the degradation of lignocellulose by bacteria such as how the bacteria able to degrade lignocellulose materials, which strains of bacteria is capable of degrading lignocelluloses materials and what mechanism are used by the bacteria to degrade the lignocellulose. The aim of the study is to screen, isolate and characterize the lignocellulolytic bacteria. Through this study, bacteria that capable of degrading lignocelluloses materials were screened, isolated, and then characterized. The best lignocellulose bacteria were identified by the morphological, molecular and biochemical characteristics. The bacteria were screened for ligninolytic properties using carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) and Remazol Brilliant Blue reagent (RBBR) substrate specific plate assay. Besides thatm CMC enzyme assay was also conducted in order to gain the information on the ligninolytic enzyme activity produced. After that, the bacterial cells were characterized based on morphological characteristic using staining methods, biochemical characteristics and molecular characteristics using colony PCR and AGE. The PCR product was sequenced and BLAST search conducted in order to identified the species of the bacteria. The result of BLAST identified the S3 sample as Burkholderia sp. while the C4 as Pantoea sp