Author(s)

Ingrid Cristina Soares Amorim¹, Gessica Oliveira Marinho², Tarcisio Michael Ferreira Soares de Oliveira¹, Juan Pedro Bretas Roa¹, Arlete Barbosa dos Reis¹, David Lee Nelson², Thiago Machado Pasin^3*, Vivian Machado Benassi¹

¹Instituto de Ciência e Tecnologia, Universidade Federal dos Vales dos Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, Campus JK, Diamantina, Brasil.
²Programa de Pós-Graduação em Biocombustíveis, Universidade Federal dos Vales dos Jequitinhonha e Mucuri, Campus JK, Diamantina, Brasil.
³Departamento de Bioquímica e Imunologia, Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brasil.

The industrial importance and the high cost of the commercial amylase require the study of microorganisms that produce these enzymes. For this reason, the objective of this work was to isolate filamentous fungi from a region of the caatinga and evaluate their potential for the production of amylase. Four soil samples were collected from a deactivated dump located in the city of Diamantina, MG, in a region of the caatinga. The analysis of amylolytic production in a submerged medium at the ideal temperature of each microorganism was performed using the saccharification method, and the reducing sugars formed were quantified by DNS. Fourteen filamentous fungi were isolated, which had different morphological aspects. Regarding amylase production, a mean activity of 0.477 U·mL^-1 was obtained with the isolates I 1.2.1 and I 4.4.1. These results bring important information regarding the biodiversity of the caatinga, in addition to the isolation of microorganisms that can be used as biological machinery to obtain metabolites with high biotechnological and industrial potential.

Amylolytic Enzyme, Bioprospecting, Filamentous Fungi, Industrial Interest

Amorim, I. , Marinho, G. , de Oliveira, T. , Roa, J. , dos Reis, A. , Nelson, D. , Pasin, T. and Benassi, V. (2020) Isolation of Filamentous Fungi from the Caatinga Region and Production of Amylolytic Enzymes of Great Industrial Interest. Journal of Biosciences and Medicines, 8, 152-164. doi: 10.4236/jbm.2020.811014.