Enzyme profiling of microbes for biodegradation of polythene (LDPE) isolated from Chhattisgarh, India

Abstract Polythene waste management is a major environmental problem, and increasing a negative impact on human civilization due to dumping here and there. Since, a long time, scientists are trying to control the polythene pollution. There are many reports on microbes as polythene degrader but till no field application of these microbes is known. Thus, we need to investigate more potent polythene degrading microbes. Peroxidases (laccase, lignin peroxidase and MnP) are relatively nonspecific and have unique ability to degrade abroad array of environmental pollutants (Kuwahara et al., 1984, Ali et al., 2012). In this context, Laccase, lignin peroxidase and manganese peroxidase enzyme producing microbes were screened for their biodegrading ability against LDPE (polythene). In the present study 20 fungal isolates were tested against LDPE film , and found that only eight fungal isolates viz., RNB7, RSR4, RRB2, TWB1, RBM1, RCM1, JCP6 , KOC3, DRR2 as considerable LDPE degrader in weight reduction test (more than 1-2%). RCM1 isolate shows highest percentage of LDPE weight reduction (13.1%) was further study for bio film formation, pH change and FTIR analysis. No pre-treatment was done of polythene films except the alcohol treatment for sterilization purpose. As, photo-oxidation, UV rays and temperature are believed to be main physical parameter for accelerate deterioration of polythene in natural condition and if these parameters are artificially imposed on polythene it may increase the rate of degradation then there is a hope for lab to land experiments.