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SOLID STATE FERMENTATION FOR THE PRODUCTION OF Β-GLUCOSIDASE BY CO-CULTURE OF ASPERGILLUS NIGER AND A. ORYZAE

FAREEHA RAZA, NASREEN AKHTAR RAZA^†, UZMA HAMEED, IKRAM-UL-HAQ AND I. MARIAM

Abstract: Microbial consortium represents an important new frontier for biotechnology. It has been employed in many fields of biotechnology but its application for the production of β-glucosidase is yet to be explored. Therefore, present work has been aimed for the selection of co-culture of Aspergillus sp., and optimization of cultural conditions for the biosynthesis of β-glucosidase by solid state fermentation. For this purpose, mono and co-cultures of Aspergillus niger, A. awamori and A. oryzae were tested and co-culture of A. niger and A. oryzae gave comparatively better production of β-glucosidase. The enzyme production was optimal when agricultural by-product wheat bran (10 g) was used as solid substrate for fungal growth. Among 10 different diluents tested, M-2 containing (g/l, w/v) KH₂PO₄ 2.0, (NH₄)₂SO₄ 1.4, urea 0.3, MgSO₄.7H₂O 0.3, ZnSO₄.7H₂O 0.0014, FeSO₄.7H₂O 0.005, MnSO₄ 0.0016, CoCl₂ 0.002, CaCl₂ 0.002, polypeptone 1.0 and Tween-80 2.0 ml gave relatively higher enzyme production. The maximum production of β-glucosidase (2975±5.3 U/g/min) was obtained after optimization of cultural conditions such as incubation period (72 h), initial pH (5.5), substrate to diluent ratio (1:1) and inoculum size (2 ml of spore suspension i.e., 3:1 ratio of A. niger and A. oryzae).

Institute of Industrial Biotechnology, GC University, Lahore, Pakistan.

†Queen Mary College, Lahore, Pakistan

*Corresponding author E-mail: ikmhaq@yahoo.com; Tel: +92 42 9211634, Fax: +92 42 9211634,