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Isolation and Screening of Amylase Producing Bacterial Strains from Cafeteria Waste

PRIYAM TYAGI, AMIT KAUSHIK, VINEET KASWAN AND AARTI SHARMA*
Molecular Genetics Lab, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Amity Institute of Biotechnology, Amity University,
Sector-125, Noida-201 301 (Uttar Pradesh), India
*(e-mail : asharma11@amity.edu)
(Received : February 28, 2017; Accepted : April 10, 2018)

ABSTRACT

Amylases are enzymes which are involved in the breakdown of starch to simpler sugars and have enormous applications in food, pharma, fermentation, paper and textile industries. They are produced by plants, animals and microbes naturally but are produced for industrial use employing bacteria and fungi. In this study, cafeteria waste was collected and amylase producing bacterial strains were isolated from it. The waste was mashed in a mortar and pestle followed by serial dilution, spreading the diluents on nutrient agar plates and streaking the isolates to purify each strain. The ability of the 16 isolated strains to produce amylase was tested by streaking each strain on agar plates enriched with 1% starch. The plates were incubated at 37°C for 24-48 h following which the plates were flooded with 10% iodine solution. A zone of clearance was observed around strains which had the ability to hydrolyse starch, the amylase producing ability of these strains was also confirmed by spectrophotometric analysis. This study resulted in isolation of four amylase producing strains from cafeteria waste which can be very useful for the industries.

Key words : Amylase, starch hydrolysis, waste, food industry, microbial product