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The marine environment harbours a vast diversity of microorganisms, many of which are unique, and have potential to produce commercially useful materials. Therefore, marine biodiversity from Australian and Indian habitat has been explored to produce novel bioactives, and enzymes. Among these, thraustochytrids collected from Indian habitats were shown to be rich in saturated fatty acids (SFAs) and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), together constituting 51-76% of total fatty acids (TFA). Indian and Australian thraustochytrids occupy separate positions in the dendrogram, showing significant differences exist in the fatty acid profiles in these two sets of thraustochytrid strains. In general, Australian strains had a higher docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) content than Indian strains with DHA at 17-31% of TFA. A range of enzyme activities were observed in the strains, with Australian strains showing overall higher levels of enzyme activity, with the exception of one Indian strain (DBTIOC-1). Comparative analysis of the fatty acid profile of 34 strains revealed that Indian thraustochytrids are more suitable for biodiesel production since these strains have higher fatty acids content for biodiesel (FAB, 76%) production than Australian thraustochytrids, while the Australian strains are more suitable for omega-3 (40%) production.

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Multiple enzymes are required for efficient hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass and no wild type organism is capable of producing all enzymes in desired levels. In this study, steam explosion of wheat straw was carried out at pilot scale and a synthetic enzyme mixture (EnzMix) was developed by partially replacing the cellulase with critical dosages of commercially available accessory enzymes (β-glucosidase, xylanase and laccase) through central composite design. Highest degree of synergism (DS) was observed with β-glucosidase (1.68) followed by xylanase (1.36). Finally, benchmarking of EnzMix (Celluclast, β-glucosidase and xylanase in a protein ratio of 20.40: 38.43: 41.16, respectively) and other leading commercial enzymes was carried out. Interestingly, hydrolysis improved by 75% at 6 h and 30% at 24 h, respectively in comparison of control. By this approach, 25% reduction in enzyme dosage was observed for obtaining the same hydrolysis yield with opitimized enzyme cocktail. Thus, development of enzyme cocktail is an effective and sustainable approach for high hydrolysis efficiency.