PRODUCTION OF CELL WALL-HYDROLYZING ENZYMES AND GC-MS EXTRACT ANALYSIS OF BYSSOCHLAMYS LAGUNCULARIAE, A NEW RECORD ISOLATED FROM EGYPT

In the present work, six strains of Byssochlamys lagunculariae were isolated from alkaline wastewater of textile factory polluted with azo dyes in Alexandria, Egypt. Out of the six strains, only one was identified using the sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer gene (ITS). ITS sequence was uploaded to GenBank (MT939911) and a pure culture was maintained in the culture collection of Assiut University Mycological Centre (AUMC) as B. lagunculariae AUMC 14498. The strain shared some morphological characteristics indicating species such as the existence of smooth chlamydospores, ascospore size, and good growth on Czapek’s yeast autolysate agar (CYA) at 30 °C. However, it was different from the type species by providing larger conidia and positive acid production on creatine sucrose agar (CREA) at 30 °C. Extrolite analysis of this strain was performed using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The extrolite analysis extract revealed that more than fifty chemical compounds were detected, which have an important medical application. All B. lagunculariae strains tested, when grown on oat spelt xylan could utilize oat spelt xylan to produce endoglucanase, exoglucanase and xylanase as well as maize starch and pectin, respectively for amylase and pectinase production. Three strains of B. lagunculariae achieved maximum specific activity for amylase ranged from 75.65 to 114.67 IU/mg, while one of these three was superior for endoglucanase (59.1 IU/mg), exoglucanase (102.84 IU/mg), pectinase (34.33 IU/mg), and xylanase (90.21 IU/mg) production.