Amylase, Cellulase and Protease Activities of Filamentous Fungi Isolated from Forest Soils of Arunachal Pradesh, North Eastern India

This study was conducted with the aim of isolating filamentous fungi capable of producing important industrial enzymes like protease, amylase and cellulase from different forest soils of Arunachal Pradesh, North Eastern India. Cellulase and amylase production by filamentous fungi were screened on Mandel and Reese agar (MRA) supplemented with CMC-Na cellulose and starch agar (SA) media. Screening of protease production was carried out on skimmed milk agar (SMA) plates. A total of 85 fungal isolates were screened for three enzyme activities. Thirty one fungal isolates (36%) were found to produce the three extracellular enzymes. Twenty five (25) fungal isolates have shown protease production followed by 12 isolates for amylase and 10 isolates displaying cellulase production. Aspergillus flavus produced highest protease hydrolyzing index (2.74 ± 0.21) while Penicillium chrysogenum and Purpureocillium sp. showed highest hydrolyzing indices for amylase (2.58 ± 0.11) and cellulase enzyme (1.51 ± 0.09) respectively. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed statistically significant variation in size of hydrolyzing zones of the three enzymes among the fungal isolates. Four species of filamentous fungi, A. flavus, Penicillium jensenii, P. chrysogenum and P. spinulosum were found to show all three enzyme activities. Further studies on optimization of culture media of these filamentous fungi could lead to large scale production of the three important enzymes for commercial applications.