Author Description

Cellulose is a most dominating waste material in agricultural field in form of agro residue(wheat husk). It is a very cheap and renewable source of energy which is used for production of biofuel, stoning of denium garments for producing softness, used in detergents, used for clarification of fruit and vegetables juices, removing inks, etc. In this study, we isolated five different strain of Fungi and one strain of Bacteria which produce cellulase enzyme from soil sample taken from Mundi kharar, punjab. Mineral salt media with CMC(carboxymethylcellulose) were used for isolation of cellulase produicng microbes. Congo red dye technique were used for screening of cellulase producing microbes. We perform separate enzyme assay for Endo-β-1,4-glucanase, β-glucosidase cellulase enzyme and Exo-1,4-β-D-glucanase cellulase enzyme by using DNSA method and calculated the separate enzyme activity for that. Out of five strain(F1, F2, F3, F4, F5) of fungi and one strain(B1) of bacteria, F4 strain of fungi has highest cellulase enzyme activity of 0.069 μmols/min for Endo-β-1,4-glucanase, β-glucosidases and 0.029μmols/min for Exo-1,4-β-D-glucanase cellulase enzyme. F2 strain of fungi has very lowest cellulase enzyme activity of 0.021μmols/min for Endo-β-1,4-glucanase, β-glucosidases and 0.001μmoles/min for Exo-1,4-β-D-glucanase cellulase enzyme. Substrate used for fungal and bacterial assay are CMC(carboxymethycellulose) and Whatmann-1 filter paper(1×6). Solid state fermentation were performed and it was observed that the isolated strain of fungi and bacteria were successfully utilized the agro residue(wheat husk) and produce cellulase enzyme. Mineral salt media with CMC were used for solid state fermentation.