Bioprospecting of hot springs and compost in West Anatolia regarding phytase producing thermophilic fungi

Sennur Çalis kan Özdemir & Atac Uzel

Sydowia 72: 1–11

Published online on January 28th, 2020

Phytase is commonly used as feed supplement for poultry and catalyses the hydrolysis of phytate into inorganic phosphates and myo-inositol phosphates. Extreme environments, especially warm habitats constitute an important resource for the discovery of microorganisms with unique enzymes. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the culturable thermophilic and thermotolerant fungal biodiversity of hot springs and compost samples in Western Anatolia and their extracellular phytase production capacities for the first time. A total of 43 environmental samples (26 soils and 17 sediments) were collected from 17 different hot springs and 1 compost sample was taken from a mushroom farm. A total of 48 filamentous fungal strains were isolated. Fourteen (29 %) strains were classified as thermophilic and 34 (71 %) strains as thermotolerant regarding to their heat requirements. Of the 48 isolates, 33 (69 %) were Aspergillus species. All isolates were quantitatively screened for their extracellular phytase activities and 42 (88 %) of the 48 isolates produces phytase in a range of 8.82 – 331.22 (U/mg). This study demonstrates that hot springs in West Anatolia harbour a rich thermophilic/thermotolerant fungal diversity possessing phytase producing potential and mushroom farming selectively enhances thermophilic fungi.

Keywords: fungal diversity, Aspergillus, enzyme production, molecular phylogeny.

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