Research Article
Biodegradation of Natural Rubber Latex of Calotropis procera by Two Endophytic Fungal Species
Nadia H Mohamed1,2, Mady A Ismail1, Wael M Abdel-Mageed3,4 and Ahmed AM Shoreit1*
1Department of Botany and Microbiology, Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt
2Biology Department, Faculty of Science and Art, Samtah, Jazan University, Saudi Arabia
3Pharmacognosy Department, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
4Pharmacognosy Department, Faculty of Pharmacy, Assiut University, Assiut 71526, Egypt
- *Corresponding Author:
- Ahmed Abdelfattah Mohamed Shoreit
Department of Botany and Microbiology
Faculty of Science, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt
Tel: +201003406161
Fax: +20882342708
E-mail: ashoreit1968@yahoo.com
Received Date: December 31, 2016; Accepted Date: January 17, 2017; Published Date: January 19, 2017
Citation: Mohamed NH, Ismail MA, Abdel-Mageed WM, Shoreit AAM (2017) Biodegradation of Natural Rubber Latex of Calotropis procera by Two Endophytic Fungal Species. J Bioremediat Biodegrad 8:380. doi: 10.4172/2155-6199.1000380
Copyright: © 2017 Mohamed NH, et al. This is an open-a ccess article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
In this study eight species related to Aspergillus (3 species), Fusarium (1), Penicillium (1), Emericella (1), Nigrospora (1) and Trichoderma (1) were isolated from leaves and latex of Calotropis procera. Only P. chrysogenium and A. niger were able to grow on natural rubber but other species were not. The degrading ability of (Penicillium chrysogenum and Aspergillus niger), isolated from latex of Calotropis procera was assessed. The degradation of rubber latex was determined by measuring the increase in protein content of the fungus (mg/g dry wt), reduction in molecular weight (g/mol) and inherent viscosity (dl/g) of the latex. Moreover, the degradation was also confirmed by observing the growth of these species strain using scanning electron microscopy.
