DOI: 10.36347/sajb.2014.v02i01.008

Pages: 43-47

Chitosan is a novel biological macromolecule with unique properties, whose importance is increasing apparently. Chitosan has application in many areas like in food additives, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and agriculture etc. Because of its high antimicrobial activity against a wide range of pathogenic and spoilage microorganisms, including fungi, Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, it is used as food preservative. Inspite of this, it is used for Removal of dye, Color stabilization in food industry and as Animal feed additive. Recently, in industries, chitosan is manufactured by thermochemical deacetylation of chitin with conc. alkali. But, to avoid degradation of the polymer chain and to circumvent environmental pollution caused by thermochemical deacetylation, an alternative procedure has been investigated. The enzymatic deacetylation of chitin is one such procedure which could potentially be employed, especially when a controlled and well-defined process is required. Chitin deacetylase (Chitin amidohydrolase, EC 3.5.1.41) is the enzyme that catalyses the conversion of chitin to chitosan by the deacetylation of GlcNAc residues. During my research work, numerous microbes like fungi, bacteria and yeast were screened to select the suitable microorganism for the production of chitin deacetylase. Among the various isolates, SN-1 was found to be desirous microbe for the production of chitin deacetylase based on their enzyme activity. The isolate SN-1 was found to be a yeast based on its morphological and gram staining characteristics.