Myrothecium verrucaria produced high levels of chitinases in a medium containing chitin used as a sole carbon source. Adding 0.03% urea increased the enzyme yield 4-fold in 7 days compared to the control. Adding oxgall (0.1 %) to the growth medium gave the maximum activity (acid-swollen chitin-degrading activity, 2.0IU/ml) in 7 days. The biochemical characterization of the chitinase revealed its broader temperature (25-55°C) and pH (4.0-6.5) profiles of activity which showed its potential application in fungal mycelia degradation. Compared to commercial lytic enzyme preparations (NovoZym 234 and Onozuka R-10), M, verrucaria culture filtrate had 5-6 times more chitinase activity. And this produced significantly higher levels of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine from the fungal mycelia preparations under study.Chitin, a f3-1,4-linked unbranched polymer of N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (NAG), occurs particularly in marine invertebrates, insects and fungi. Chitin is completely hydrolyzed to its monomer NAG by an enzymatic chitinolytic system, the action of which is known to be synergistic and consecutive. The endo-chitinase (EC 3.2.1.14) hydrolyzes chitin randomly while chitobiase (EC 3.2.1.30) acts on the dimer, chitobiose. The involvement of exo-chitinase, which hydrolyzes the polymer from the non-reducing end, has also been suggested by a number of researchers (5). Microorganisms such as Serratia, Streptomyces, Aspergillus and Trichoderma have been studied extensively for enzymes of the chitinolytic complex. The potential uses of chitin-degrading enzymes are in the treatment of chitin-containing wastes produced by the sea food packing industry (8), in the biocontrol of soil-borne plant-pathogenic fungi (15) and in fungal technological studies (2,7,18).
After cellulose, chitin is the second most abundant renewable resource available in nature. Marine invertebrates and fungal biomass are the two main sources of chitinous waste, which is commercially exploited. The enzymes involved in chitin degradation have been particularly well studied. Such enzymes have applications in ultrastructural studies, in the preparation of chitooligosaccharides which show anti-tumour activity, as biocontrol agents and in single-cell protein production. Here, the contribution chitin enzymology can make to basic and applied research is discussed.
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