Modulation of Growth Conditions and Fermentation Media for Xylanase Production by Wild and Mutant Fungal Strains and Their Molecular Characterization by 18S rRNA Gene Amplification

Xylan is the primary hemicellulosic part of plant biomass, xylanase plays significant role for its degradation. The current research work was done to increase xylanase production in wild and mutant form from fungal isolates. Out of 21 soil samples, 6 fungal strains were found to be good xylanse producer in optimized condition mutant form of the strains gave significantly higher level of enzyme production. 21 soil samples were collected, 16 fungal isolates were purified and characterized morphological and molecular basis. Isolated producers were subjected to improve xylanase production under optimized growth condition and fermentation media. From these, 6 fungal isolates were found to be good producer of xylanase.ZGCL22 (KT964482), ZGCL49 (KT964481), ZGCL18 (KT964484), ZGCL44 (KT964483), ZGCL51 (KT964485) and ZGCL12 (KT964480) were good xylanase producer fungal isolates. 30°C temperature and 5.0 pH was found to be optimum for most of the xylanase producer fungal isolates except ZGCL44 strain which was found to be optimum at 9.0 pH for 5 days of fermentation period. Xylanase maximum activity observed at 50°C, at 30 minutes of incubation with 1% substrate concentration. On the basis of 18S rRNA sequencing using ITS primer. Xylanase encoding gene xyn B was amplified in one fungal strain ZGCL22. These local fungal isolates were good producers of xylanase and should be explored for enhanced biological production of xylanases under optimized conditions. Fungal production of xylanase will be cheaper and easier.