Abstract

Pectinases are of commercial importance due to their application in manufacturing fruit juices (apple/ citrus), paper, textile and jute retting for its up gradation. The main thrust idea of the present study was concerned with the isolation of bacteria from different habitats for the production of the enzyme polygalacturonase. 16 bacterial colonies selected from preliminary screening by well plate method were subjected for morphological and biochemical characterization.  Bacterial isolates, ZS-03 and ZS-17 which showed maximum zone sizes of 27 and 30 mm in well plate assay were characterized as Klebsiella species, whereas ZS-10 exhibiting zone size 25 mm was characterized as Staphylococcus sp.  Quantification of polygalacturonase in the cell free supernatant was carried out by dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) method and detected upto 2.8 U/µl in cell the free supernatants. Molecular characterization by 16S rRNA sequences identified ZS-03 as Klebsiella pneumoniae, ZS-10 as Klebsiella veriicola and ZS-17Staphylococcus guallinarium.

Key words: DNS method, Klebsiella pneumonia, pectinases, polygalacturonase,Staphylococcus guallinarium.