Screening and Isolation of lignocellulolytic fungi from mangrove soils

Lignocellulolytic fungi play an important role in bioremediation of many environmentally persistent pollutants such as aromatic xenobiotics, heterocyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, chlorinated aromatic compounds and various dyes which are used in textile industries and pulping industries. Lignin is a compound which is held together by strong chemical bonding. This made it difficult to be degraded.However, studies had found that, lignocellulolytic fungi can solve these environmental problems by secreting their nonspecific lignocellulolytic extracellular enzymes. In this research, a lignocellulolytic fungus SHY 43 was isolated from mangrove soils and was identified as Penicilium sp. It showed 92.6 % of Remazol Brilliant Blue R dye decolourisation which indicates the presence of ligninolytic activities.It also performed well in cellulase screening test whereby it had the highest total endoglucanase activity on day 8 which was 3.074 U/L. It was then used in the solid state fermentation (SSF) using oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) as the substrate. There were four enzymes analysed during the enzyme assays, which were laccase, manganese peroxidase, lignin peroxidase and cellulase. Among these four enzymes, only cellulase activity was detected whereas the other three ligninolytic enzymes were deactivated. Total endoglucanase activity peaked at day 9 with a value of 0.067 U/ml