Production and Characterization of Lignin Peroxidases from Mangrove Ascomycetes

The continually growing worldwide hazardous waste problem is receiving much attention lately. The development of cost effective, yet efficient methods of decontamination are vital to our success in solving this problem.Bioremediation using white rot fungi, a group of basidiomycetes characterized by their ability to degrade lignin by producing extracellular LiP, MnP and laccase have come to be recognized globally which is described in detail in Chapter 1.These features provide them with tremendous advantages over other micro-organisms.Chapter 2 deals with the isolation and screening of lignin degrading enzyme producing micoro-organisms from mangrove area. Marine microbes of mangrove area has great capacity to tolerate wide fluctuations of salinitie.Primary and secondary screening for lignin degrading enzyme producing halophilic microbes from mangrove area resulted in the selection of two fungal strains from among 75 bacteria and 26 fungi. The two fungi, SIP 10 and SIP ll, were identified as penicillium sp and Aspergillus sp respectively belonging to the class Ascomycetes .Specific activity of the purified LiP was 7923 U/mg protein. The purification fold was 24.07 while the yield was 18.7%. SDS PAGE of LiP showed that it was a low molecular weight protein of 29 kDa.Zymogram analysis using crystal violet dye as substrate confirmed the peroxidase nature of the purified LiP.The studies on the ability of purified LiP to decolorize different synthetic dyes was done. Among the dyes studied, crystal violet, a triphenyl methane dye was decolorized to the greatest extent.

Biochemical Characterization and Bio-evaluation of Collagen and Collagen Peptides Extracted and Purified from Fish Skin: In vitro and In vivo Studies on Antiarthritic and Wound Healing Properties

In fish processing plants, there is huge amount of skin that is left as the waste. When this skin is taken and processed into fish collagen, it will save large amount of money that is used for extraction of collagen from other animal s.Fish collagen can be used as an alternative to replace mammalian collagen, especially collagen extracted from bovine, when we consider the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) and the foot - and-mouth disease (FMD) issues. BSE and TSE are progressive neurological disorders affecting cattles caused by proteinacious infectious particles called prions.The study aims in producing collagen that has been extracted from fish skin to replace other animal collagen so as to overcome the problem of other animal collagen issues. Also the study utilized the abandoned fish waste produced by fish processing industry since bone, skin, fin and scales of fish can be a useful source of collagen.