Qualitative Display and Measurement of Enzyme Activity of Isolated Cellulolytic Bacteria

Cellulase is the key enzyme in the bio refinery process of producing green chemicals. As cellulase production cost is the major factor in these processes, there is lot of need to isolate the effective producers of cellulase from the natural environment which can degrade the abundantly available lignocellulose materials. Congo red clearing zone assay, gel diffusion assay and dyed congo red filter paper clearing zone assay are used for qualitative display of cellulolytic activity. These techniques are effective in isolation and identification of cellulolytic microorganisms. Six bacterial isolates are isolated and comparatively analysed for effective producer of cellulase enzyme. Among the six bacterial isolates, a bacterium F is found to be effective producer both qualitatively and quantitatively. It has the cellulolytic activity of 23.9 mg of glucose/ml/min and clearing zone of 1.9 cm compared to next effective producer having activity of 22.9 glucose/ml/min and clearing zone of 1.7 cm. This isolate may be useful in industrial application in near future.