Isolation of Extracellular Fungal Pectinolytic Enzymes and Extraction of Pectin Using Kinnow Waste as Substrate

Abstract

Kinnow consumption and processing results in generation of waste in form of peels and pomace. Value addition of such waste can result in extraction of important byproducts namely pectin, pectinases, peel oil and dietary fibers. Of these pectin and pectinases are of wide importance in food industry. Various types of fungal species have been reported to be employed for production of pectinases.As extracellular pectinases are easier to harvest and thus the scale up is cheaper and simpler. Thus in the present study, kinnow waste was used to generate extracellular fungal pectinases from natural sources along with extraction of pectin. The selected potential fungal isolates from nature were screened based on qualitative estimation of their pectinolytic activity on selective media (pectin as only carbon source). Morphological examination of screened isolates revealed that Isolate#1 and Isolate#3 could be of Rhizopus genus and Isolate#2 could of Aspergillus genus. Aspergillus oryzae var oryzae was used as standard fungi in the present. Quantitative estimation of total protein was made to know total enzymatic activities generated from isolates. It was done via SmF as well as SSF and pure pectin resulted in maximum activity among substrates, followed by peel powder and finally pomace. Optimal day of incubation for isolate #2 and isolate #3 was 9th day and it was 6th day for isolate #1 and standard, in both SmF and SSF.