Journal of Biotechnology & Biomaterials
Open Access

Abstract

During the last three decades numerous bioactive compounds have been isolated from marine microorganisms and used as sources of therapeutic agents. Marine yeasts are considered to be an important category of marine microorganisms. As a unicellular organism yeast has wide range of potential application from ancient fermentation industry to modern molecular biology. Yeast enzymes were found to be useful in various industrial and biomedical fields there by indicating their importance in day to day human activities. Yeast belonging to the genera Candida, Debaryomyces, Pichia, Cryptococcus, Rhodotorula, and Trichosporon were isolated from the Arabian Sea and examined for their hydrolytic enzyme production. The result showed that majority of the isolates were lipolytic (89.91%) followed by gelatinolytic (22.94%) and amylolytic (14.68%). Generic wise analysis of the hydrolytic enzyme potential showed that Trichosporon were found to be the most potent isolate for enzyme production, 56.25% produced amylase, 32% were gelatinolytic and 9.18% exhibited lipolytic activity. Among Cryptococcus strains 18.75% produced amylase, 16% gelatinase and 9.18% produced lipase. Of Candida 12.5% produced amylase, 12% gelatinase and 39.8% lipase. Among Rhodotorula 11.22% of produced lipase and none of this isolate produced amylase or gelatinase. Among Debaryomyces strains 6.25% produced amylase, 40% gelatinase and 18.31% lipase. Among Pichia 6.25% produced amylase and 12.25% lipases and none of this isolate produced gelatinase. Among the isolated species 23.85% of strains showed urease activity. The present study highlights the importance of marine yeast as a potent source of hydrolytic enzymes.

Biography

Savitha K. Koilery is pursuing her Ph.D. in Biotechnology, under the guidance of Dr. Keerthi T.R. Associate Professor at Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India. She has more than four years of experience in Biotechnological studies has attended trainings and workshops in this field. She has presented her research findings at International Conferences like Asian Congress on Biotechnology ?ACB 2011? Shanghai, China, International Conference on Sensors ?Asiasence 2011? Jeju, Korea and the International Conference on Advances in Biological Sciences ?ICABS 2012? Kannur, Kerala. She also has paper publications in reputed journals like Res J Pharm Biol Chem Sci.