Production and characterization of xylanase from bacteria isolated from botanical garden soil of Sultan Qaboos University, Oman

Hemicellulose is the second most abundant renewable biomass next to cellulose and accounts for 25 35% of lignocellulosic biomass which is considered to be a promising biomass feedstock for the production of biofuels. andbeta;-1,4-xylan is the major hemicellulose component. Xylanases are the enzymes responsible for xylan or hemicelluloses degradation. These xylanolytic enzymes have attracted a great deal of attention because of their biotechnological potential in various industrial processes, such as food industry in order to enhance the digestibility of animal feeding, as well as in the textile industry, pulp and paper industry for bleaching purposes, resulting in a decrease of chlorine utilization and consequently lowering environmental impact. Because of the high cost of utilization processes, the lignocellulosic wastes from agriculture and other industries have not been used efficiently. Municipal solid waste is composed of 40 50% cellulose, 9 12% hemicelluloses, and 10 15% lignin on a dry weight basis. Most of the carbon dioxide and methane are produced from biodegradable lignocellulosic wastes such as wood, leaves, other agriculture residues and waste papers. Hence, recycling of such wastes would decrease the greenhouse effect. According to 210 survey, about 1.6 million tons of solid waste is simply discarded in landfills in Oman every year. It consists mainly of renewable sources such as wood, paper and food materials. The disposal of such wastes in landfills results in the emission of green house gases. Out of 1.6 million tons of solid waste in Oman, 62000 tons is of paper waste and paper contains several substances like cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin or various compounds of lignin. This much of waste paper could be used as a carbon source to produce an economically important xylanase enzyme. In addition, the bio-converted waste paper could also be used as a substrate to produce various value added products using microbial fermentation. Therefore recycling and utilization of waste paper as inexpensive carbon source for microbial fermentation receives considerable economic interest. Hence the proposed study is aimed to isolate xylanase producing indigenous bacterial species, identification using 16r RNA sequencing, standardization of optimum conditions for xylanase fermentation, purification and characterization of xylanase enzyme. These xylanase producing bacteria could be used to degrade the paper waste in combination with cellulase producing bacteria.